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Marooned
Date: 6 October 2003, 8:54 AM

M A R O O N E D
---------------

A story based on the Halo Universe by Steve Ollett
--------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER 1

1542HRS 07-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM

"There they are!" shouted Private Murray over the growl of the Warthog's engine as the robust all-terrain vehicle crested a small hillock. Stood at the triple barreled machine gun - the standard issue of most M12 LRV (Light Reconnaissance Vehicle) Warthogs - he had the better view.

"Bloody scientists!" muttered Corporal Stocks, in the passenger seat. He sat one foot up on the dash, holding his S2 AM sniper rifle aloft in this right hand, the long barrel of the weapon pointing skyward, resting against his right shoulder. "Three bloody hours driving round looking for them... ...Three Bloody Hours! Do they think we're some kind of taxi service?"

"Yeah, and I'm bouncing around like a pea on a drum back here" answered Murray, "This gun is a bitch to hold over this terrain!"

Turning to face the rear passenger, Stocks incredulously retorted, "Then why the hell didn't you lock it down, Murray?"

"Hey, I ain't taking any chances", Murray replied as he struggled to keep the chain gun level, "what with us being on the edge of the Covenant frontier systems."

Stocks countered, "Well, quit your bitching then Lanky, or I'll lock your mouth down. Permanently!"

"Can it! Both of you! We're professionals, remember?" answered Sergeant Ryan, as he gunned the Warthog downhill. Although being in charge of his unit, he liked to have a hands-on approach, which included doing some of the driving. He liked to think that it gave the impression that he was just of the guys. Besides that he actually enjoyed throwing the Warthog about, it was a great way to get rid of his tension.

Ryan skidded the Warthog to halt. As he prepared to jump down from the vehicle, he turned to the other occupants and said sternly "I'll deal with this". His boots squelched on the water logged ground as he made contact.

"Stay here?!?! What? Are we dogs or something?" Stocks muttered, as Ryan strode off towards the scientists.

Just as he was walking out of earshot of the Warthog. Ryan could just make out the distinctive laugh of Private Murray jesting at Corporal Stocks, "Yeah, well you're a grumpy puppy today aren't you?"

The answer to that wasn't going to be too pleasant, Ryan mused. In fact he was glad of being away from them, even for a short while. Their constant banter had escalated as they fed off each other's comments to the point that they were virtually at each other's throats. If they'd been kids, he would have probably banged their heads together by now.

All things considered they weren't that bad. Ryan had a long history with John Stocks. They both trained together as part of the British contingent of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), having done the usual Norwegian winter survival exercises, and also surviving in the Australian outback after an exercise that went wrong. Their Pelican crashed killing everyone except John and Ryan. To make matters worse Ryan had a broken leg, yet the pair made it out six weeks later after Stocks had patched up Ryan's leg up as best as he could with only minimal medical supplies. After that experience they were like brothers.

Three months after the Australian incident they were both assigned to the UNSC Sheffield, a destroyer class vessel, and served almost twenty years since in the Special Space Services, an elite division of the UNSC Space Marines.

John's only real problem was that he was a grumpy bastard. He tended to see things only in black and white, which was fine in most situations, but that often led to snap decisions that caused all sorts of trouble. But caught in a fire-fight, Ryan couldn't think of anyone else he'd rather fight back-to-back with. Being the gun-nut that Stocks was, he always seemed to be bristling with firepower, be that scoped weapons. Ryan often joked that he once saw Stocks actually club an opponent with an empty pistol, rather than pick up a full assault rifle that lay nearby.

Private Steve Murray was totally different. At eighteen years old, he was still a raw recruit. Fair-haired and about 6'-4", he was skinny for his height. Despite his thin build, 'Lanky' Steve Murray was deceptively strong.

Steve had transferred from the UNSC Halifax, a Frigate class vessel after 3 months active duty. Someone had recognized potential in him and so he ended up on the Sheffield and six months later he was seconded to Ryan's unit.

Ryan hadn't actually fought beside him in an actual combat situation yet, but in the exercises that they'd been in so far, he had given him the impression that he'd be a fine soldier. His optimistic attitude was another plus point and his sense of humor helped to lighten the mood of everyone, that is except John Stocks, but that just added to the comedy value of the situation between Murray and Stocks. In between the banter and harsh comments, Ryan swore that he could see the mutual respect growing between the pair of them.

At about ten feet into his walk, a series of low distant rumbles caught Ryan's attention. Turning around, and looking back past the Warthog (Stocks & Murray were still going at each other), black clouds loomed ominously.
Just distant thunder, he thought. Nothing to worry about.

Turning his attention back to the science team, he made his way towards them walking up a slight rise. The wind had picked up slightly, being channeled down the huge 'U'-shaped valley that they were in. Ryan took in the fantastic view.

A small stream wound it's way down the center of the valley, through a large mere that was flanked by boggy grassland on either side. Small waterfalls hung on either side of the valley walls at various intervals, their white water cascading down with a quiet hiss, these small tributaries eventually joining the stream and the mere in the center of the valley floor. The wind fanned the foot high grass, and he could have sworn he caught the fragrance of pine trees.

The valley floor was fairly flat, being dotted with huge rounded rocks and mounds, with huge grooves scored across the rocks, running parallel to the valley walls. They were probably formed along with this valley millions of years ago by the immense power of a slow moving glacier pushing rocks and other debris down the valley over thousands of years. Looking at the magnificence of the scene Ryan suddenly felt small and insignificant.

Refocusing on the job in hand, he strode on. About thirty feet away the two civilian scientists knelt on the ground near to their drilling equipment, examining six foot long core samples drilled from the rocks and soil. Several microscopes, shovels, sample jars, and a couple of portable computer terminals sat within easy reach.

Two standard issue tents and another Warthog stood nearby. Two soldiers sat feet-up, playing cards in the front seats of their Warthog. They had the pleasure of baby-sitting the scientists, but weren't paying attention to their activities.

"Dr Zoran, are we finished here?" Ryan announced loudly. The irritation in his voice was crystal clear.

"Er, Ya, Sergeant Ryan." The scientist replied in his Swedish accent, "we have many interesting samples here. But need more time to analyze."

Annoyed by the Zoran's apparent lack of respect for procedure, Ryan's dressing down of scientist was brutal and strangely funny, "Analyze this Zoran; Next time you decide to have a little drive in the country, turn your radio on and fucking call in first! We are only 15 light-years from the edge of Covenant Space, and we don't know whether or not the Covie have a claim on this rock. Next time, follow procedure or the only thing you'll be analyzing is stool samples from the ships latrines."

"But the radio was on!" said a voice behind Zoran. "I switched it on myself." said a young dark haired woman, stepping forward. She was dressed in a grey single piece flight-suit, which fitted her well in all the right places. Extending a hand out to Ryan, she continued, "Hello, I'm Karen, Karen Moore, Dr Zoran's assistant."

"Assistant, huh? Well, you didn't look much like a scientist to me." Ryan answered.

"Yeah? And you sound more like a comedian with your comment about stool samples, rather than a soldier. What's your name?"

"Sergeant Ryan" He replied, and while gesturing toward his team, "- and this is my bunch of goons, some of them you've met already."

Gazing at her sculpted cheek-bones, her dark shoulder length hair and dark brooding eyes, Ryan suddenly felt like he'd been stood there for a year. Starting to feel like a fool he tore his eyes away from her and back to Zoran.

"Zoran, we're leaving. Anything not packed up in ten minutes gets left behind".

With that Ryan turned on his heels and strode off towards the second Warthog.

"Hey wait for me!" came a shout from behind. "Who's she?" Stocks asked inquisitively and slightly out of breath, having jogged over to see what was going on.

"Just the Scientist's assistant, John. You know, taking and analyzing samples, scientist shit." Ryan replied in what he thought was his most nonchalant voice, "Anyway, I thought I told you to stay put?" he added.

"I wonder what else she 'assists' him with?" Stocks grinned, ignoring Ryan's question. "I saw you looking at her. I bet you had a sample of your own in your pants for her to analyze!" he laughed.

"Fuck off, John." was Ryan's response.

As Ryan and Stocks approached the second Warthog, the two soldiers glanced up for a split second, then returned to their card game.

"Garrett! O'Shea! Listen up!" Ryan's bark was so loud that the pair of them fumbled and dropped their cards.

"shit. I almost had a full house!" muttered the tallest of the pair with a distinctive American accent.

"Garrett, get on the radio - call in the Albatross. Tell them we've found the scientists and give them our co-ordinates for extraction!" and turning to the other soldier, Ryan's orders were no less urgent, "O'Shea, pack your shit up, I want that Warthog ready to go in 5 minutes!"

Garrett and O'Shea were the other two guys in Ryan's team.

Travis Garrett was the sole American in the unit. At twenty-nine years of age he was a veteran of many campaigns, a few of them against the Covenant. His real skills were in electronics, and anything to do with computers. Before he joined up, Travis was a part of the development team that designed starship A.I. systems. He could hack anything given enough time and the right tools. Ryan's only issue with Garrett was that he was good at what he did, and liked to remind people of it. That really got up Ryan's nose.

Sean O'Shea was the mechanic/driver in the unit. He had played with motors and machinery since being a child back on his family's farm in Ireland, back on Earth. He was quite jovial, approachable, and an asset to the team - he knew just how far to tweek or push a machine to get it's best performance. When tasked to achieve a goal, and especially when working with Garrett, the pair of them could work minor miracles.

Ryan turned his attention back to Garrett, who already had the radio headset against his left ear attempting contact with the dropship. Garrett looked puzzled. Something was wrong.

"Problems, Travis?" Ryan asked.

"The Albatross, sir, its not transmitting!" Garrett exclaimed, with a hint of panic in his voice.

"Are you sure it's not just our equipment?" Ryan replied.

"I'm pretty sure that it's operating fine," Garrett answered as he put the headset down and pulled a small toolbox out from under the passenger seat of his Warthog. Opening the box, he produced a small digital test meter. "I'll check it out anyway" he continued, and cracked the case of the radio open. Setting up the test meter on the Warthog's dash, Garrett took both test probes and started checking various components. The meter's display blinked into life and bleeped, "Yeah, we got juice..." he said as he glanced at the figure on the display. He moved onto the next component. "The transmitter is... um, transmitting." After a few more minutes of checking he finally announced, "Yeah it's working fine." he said as he snapped the radio's case shut. "Let me try it again, maybe they've switched frequencies" he added.

By this time, the rest of the team has gathered round to see what the commotion was about.

After a couple of seconds of switching channels and re-transmitting, Garrett put the headset down. "I can't get them. Either their radio is broken, turned off, or..." his voice trailed off, "Or they're not there!"

"Maybe it's because we're in the valley, you know, not having line of sight with the dropship?" Murray volunteered, helpfully.

"No, it's not that", Garrett replied, launching into his tech-speak, "These transmitters don't require line of sight. They work on a similar principle to the old AM transmitter/receivers that bounce the transmission off the layers in the upper atmosphere, giving over-the-horizon communications."

Garrett stood silent for a second, with a distant look in his eyes, but you could see the realization suddenly hit him. "If the dropship is gone, then we can't contact the Sheffield - it carried the only radio capable of reaching a ship in orbit!"

"Christ!" Exclaimed Stocks.

"Awww shit" whined Murray, "We're stranded, marooned!"

------ more soon ------

Marooned - Chapter 2
Date: 13 October 2003, 7:51 AM

M A R O O N E D
---------------

CHAPTER 2

1605HRS 07-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM

The wind whipped up again, and the tents that were pitched nearby rippled loudly. Various loose sheets of paper positioned near to the microscopes whirled briefly before being carried away. A sample jar, perched precariously on top of an equipment case wobbled, then fell, shattering on the rocky floor.

This distraction was enough to break the mood of the scene. Private Travis Garrett had surmised that without the radio onboard the Albatross, contact with the Sheffield was impossible, leaving them marooned.

There were too many unknown variables in this situation thought Ryan. The Albatross's radio could have broken, or they might have been called back to the Sheffield. Or they might have gone to pick up the other science team on the surface.

The other science team! Ryan has forgotten about them. They were out there conducting similar experiments to Zoran. He wondered if they were having a similar experience. Too many variables, Ryan concluded - not enough facts. Unless he saw evidence of a downed dropship with his own eyes, he refused to accept Garrett's speculation. He had to restore some sanity to the situation. It had to be business as usual.

"Murray!" shouted Ryan, "Get a grip man." And beckoning towards his Warthog parked a short distance away, he added "Get the other Warthog over here and get it packed up with all the weapons and supplies it can carr-"

"What about my samples?" interrupted Zoran, clutching an arm full of documents he had hastily managed to scrounge up - only a small fraction of the papers that were already a good hundred yards or so from their position, in the progress of scattering like so much confetti in the wind.

"The samples are staying here" Ryan replied sternly, pushing his way past Zoran, causing him to drop a few more leaves of paper. "We're going back to the LZ. We'll come back for them later."

The sun lay low in the afternoon sky. The dark clouds loomed even closer. The valley now took on a bleaker look. The wind continued to buffet the tents.

"Erm, we might have a problem here sir." said O'Shea, taking Ryan on one side for a quiet conversation.

"What sort of problem?" asked Ryan, not liking the sound of what might follow.

"Seating arrangements, sir" O'Shea answered, "There's seven of us and only six spaces between the two Warthogs."

"Is that it?" said Ryan, somewhat relieved, "I Think I can sort that out..." he said with a smile. Ryan turned round and called, "Corporal Stocks! A minute of your time, please?"

"What's up Ryan?" said Stocks as he walked over. Out of curiosity, Private Murray tagged along with him.

"Our friend, Mr O'Shea tells me we have a problem with too many bodies, and not enough seats. Any ideas?" Asked Ryan, glancing between O'Shea, and Murray.

"Oh that's easy" laughed Stocks, "Just leave the scientist guy behind!" And, after composing himself again, Stocks winked suggestively at Ryan and added, "Or... the girl is welcome to sit on my lap all the way back!"

"Hmmm, nice idea John. As you've been giving young Murray a hard time over his chain-gun control," said Ryan, slapping Stocks on the back whilst trying not to laugh out loud, "We all thought that you could show us how it's done! Murray can sit upfront with me, and share a seat with Ms Moore, and Garrett and O'Shea can take Zoran in the other Warthog - Problem solved!"

Realizing that he had been setup, and everyone else was in on it, Stocks muttered under his breath in complaint. The one thing he hated more than being the butt of the joke was pulling duty on the Warthog's M41 LAAG (Light Anti-Aircraft Gun).

Ryan had heard Stocks complaining as he was turning to leave, and having waited till the others had gotten out of earshot, added one final twist of the knife, "Besides, you're looking a bit fat these days John." he grinned, "I thought you could do with the workout!"

"You Bastard!" was Stock's reply.

----

As the two Warthogs pulled away from the scientists' camp, the atmosphere in Ryan's Warthog could be cut with a knife. Corporal Stocks was unusually quiet, obviously still brooding over Ryan's last comment.

He wasn't fat, Stocks thought to himself; he just liked his food - that's all.

The only sounds that punctuated the growl of the Warthog's engine were various articles of webbing and equipment harnesses swinging against the Warthog's bodywork.

A brief burst of static preceded a message from the Warthog following them "Sir, it's Garrett. When we've made it through the pass at the top of the valley, adjust your heading to 271 degrees. The LZ is about two - two and a half hours away at this speed - we should make it before nightfall."

"Roger. Got that." Ryan replied.

Hopefully they should be able to get to some cover at the dropship before night. At the briefing in orbit, preliminary reports said that they should be prepared for the presence of some predatory species - but as long as that didn't include the Covenant then he could live with that.

An hour later they were out onto rolling grasslands as far as the eye could see, and making good progress.

Glancing behind him as he drove, Ryan realized that a sizable gap had grown between both vehicles.

Ryan yelled into his helmet comms above the roar of the Warthogs engine, "O'Shea, Is there a problem?"

"Could be" answered O'Shea. "I'm getting vibration through the front driver's side wheel assembly. It could be the wheel bearing on its way out, or maybe the transmission gearbox."

"Do we need to stop?" asked Ryan.

"No." was the answer. "There's nothing I can do to fix it. We'd have to replace the bearings and several oil seals and we don't carry any spares. Even if we did, it's a strip down job on the wheel assembly. Provided the shaft wasn't bent, or damaged in some other way, I'd have a difficult job fitting the new bearings - since the tolerance for the fit is so tight." Pausing for a second, he added, "The techs on board the Sheffield usually dip the driveshafts into liquid nitrogen to shrink the shaft's diameter, so that the bearings can be slid on, and we're not exactly equipped to be doing that."

"Understood." Said Ryan, "But leaving it as a simple 'No' would have sufficed. What now?"

"I'll try to coax some more mileage out of her," O'Shea replied, "We'll have to slow down a bit, and avoid the more rugged terrain. If the bearings do collapse, the wheel will seize up, and we'll only be good for driving around in a tight circle!"

"Ok, inform me of any developments. Ryan out."

Shit. That's all we need now, thought Ryan, as he adjusted his speed according to O'Shea's progress. He hoped that they would get to the LZ before nightfall.

----

About half a mile short of the LZ, O'Shea's Warthog finally gave up the fight.

Ryan stopped his Warthog and jumped down. He removed his helmet and slung it onto the driver's seat, and let out a sigh as he ran one hand through his matted hair, whilst looking into the distance.

The sun had slipped away below the horizon only minutes ago. Most of the clouds had been carried away, and although the sky was still light where the sun had been moments before, the first stars began to appear as brilliant points in the evening sky.

Ryan could have stopped to admire nature's beauty if it weren't for the pressing matter at hand. He needed a new plan.

"Ok people," Ryan announced as he turned and called everybody into an impromptu meeting, "We need to press on to the LZ - it's about half a mile from here. As we only have one useable Warthog, we're changing the seating arrangements. Murray; you're on chain gun - watch our six. Zoran and Ms Moore; you'll have to squeeze into the front passenger seat, I'm sorry but that's the way it'll have to be unless either of you know how to drive-"

"Sure, I'll drive!" Karen said, "Sean, er, I mean, Mr O'Shea let me have a go earlier today - nothing fancy - just creeping it along, with a bit of steering."

That's too convenient, thought Ryan, but nevertheless just what he needed.

"Alright then, you can drive" replied Ryan, as he slung his assault rifle on his shoulder, "The rest of us are on foot. I'll take point. Stocks; you're with me - I need that night scope on your S2 AM checking out what we're gonna' run into."

"I'm on it." said Stocks whilst cramming several extra magazines of the 14.5 x 114mm APFSDS (Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot) rounds into his combat fatigues - the deadly ammunition of his pride-and-joy S2 AM sniper rifle.

"O'Shea and Garrett," Ryan continued, "You two stay close to the Warthog - Make sure young Ms Moore doesn't mow us down in her enthusiasm to help out."

The sound of weapons being loaded and checked filled the air.

O'Shea loaded his M90 shotgun, and slung it on his shoulder. He went though the same routine with his MA5B Assault rifle, slapping another clip into it. He checked the rifle's readout, satisfied that sixty 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds were ready for action, and that if they were to run into any trouble, they were packing enough heat to make the enemy think twice. Checking that the safety was on, he slung the weapon on his shoulder alongside the M90.

Garrett had already completed his weapons detail, and was busy packing a small portable computer terminal, together with various cables and tools. Shooting the Covenant was one thing, he thought, but you never know when you might need to hack into their systems - this stuff was too valuable to leave behind.

"Transfer whatever useful supplies you can from the dead Warthog," Ryan said as he checked the clip in his M6D pistol, "and load up with as much ammo as you can carry - I want to be prepared just in case of the worst." and holstered the weapon.

Ryan took his helmet from the driver's seat of the Warthog, and seating it on his head, he added, "Oh, and one last thing. Switch to Infrared on your helmet eyepieces' - I don't want to see any lights!"

Marooned, Chapter 3
Date: 22 October 2003, 7:06 PM

M A R O O N E D
---------------

CHAPTER 3

1837HRS 07-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
APPROACHING DROPSHIP LZ.

Darkness enveloped the land quickly. As they were close the equator of the planet, twilight did not last as long as it would have if they'd been at higher latitudes.

Ryan and Stocks silently advanced towards the LZ, the only sound being that of the low purr of the Warthog's engine as it crept along some hundred yards or so behind them in complete darkness.

Corporal Stocks crept forward whilst in a low crouch, taking long slow sweeps of the horizon, the pale green of the night-vision scope barely illuminating his face which was locked in concentration. His eyes flicked to-and-fro across his field of vision taking in every feature of his surroundings. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

Sergeant Ryan advanced alongside, also in a low crouch, shouldering his assault rifle, his finger hovering over the rifle's safety switch.

Pausing for a second, Ryan gazed skyward. Perhaps he could get a glimpse of the Sheffield as it passed overhead in orbit. He hoped that everything was all right up there.

A myriad of unknown stars quietly twinkled back at him from the expanse. The beauty of the heavens had always moved him. He tried to recognise some of the constellations that he had learned as a child - the ones based on old earth mythology - but couldn't see any of them. Shivering for a second in the cold night air, he wondered if the Covenant also had the custom of grouping stars into constellations to immortalise their mythology and great battles.

The sound of an animal moving nearby refocused Ryan's attention on the ground ahead. Swinging the barrel of his rifle towards the source of the sound, his helmet-mounted IR camera picked up the heat signature of a small animal that promptly disappeared into the ground.

As they trudged onwards, the gradient increased. They were getting near to the LZ, the bed of a dried-up lake overlooked by the crescent of intermittent cliffs and scree slopes.

An orange glow over the brow of the hill illuminated a bank of clouds in the distance. Maybe it was the front of another weather system moving in. The last thing they needed was rain as well.

Cresting the hill, the source of the glow became apparent; an orange beacon flickered erratically in the darkness.

Stocks swung his rifle's scope over the distant light source, and froze for a split second.

"Quick! Get down!" hissed Stocks as he dived for cover in the long grass.

Instinctively, Ryan followed suit.

"Contact?" Ryan whispered.

"Could be." replied Stocks, whilst checking the magazine of the rifle, and adjusting the settings of the S2 AM's night vision scope.

"Ryan to O'Shea" said Ryan, as he spoke into his helmet comms. "Possible contact situation at LZ. Hold your positions and stay alert!"

"Copy." O'Shea replied, "Eyes are peeled."

Meanwhile Corporal Stocks was busy muttering to himself. "Oh that's just bloody marvellous!" he continued as he again swept his scope over the target. "Just fucking marvellous!"

"What is it?" Ryan demanded as he struggled to recover his monocular from one of the many pockets on his uniform. He didn't have the benefit of Corporal Stocks' sniper rifle's night vision scope, and it was a difficult job trying to get at his monocular whilst laid flat out on his stomach in the darkness. After a few seconds Ryan gave up on the task.

"Well," Stocks sighed, as he peered into the glow of his scope, "I got good news and bad news."

"Go on. Hit me with it." Ryan said in an almost totally dejected tone of voice.

"Okay," Stocks began, "The good news is... I've found the dropship. The bad news is she's not going anywhere."

"Shit." Ryan groaned.

Stocks turned to face Ryan and laughed, "Or..." he said, regaining some of his ironic sense of humour, "you could say that the bad news is that the dropship is on fire. The good news being that we don't have to make a campfire tonight, as we've got one going already."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" Ryan replied as he shuffled uncomfortably on the uneven ground.

"Well, you're not exactly being Mr Comedian right now, are you?" Stocks answered, "So what next?"

Ryan rolled over onto his back, and putting his hands on his head, he screwed his face up, gritting his teeth. "Oh fucking hell!" he muttered to himself.

Seconds passed.

"Right!" Ryan said as he suddenly rolled back over with renewed vigour. Ryan activated his helmet comms. "O'Shea, we found the Albratross. She's in a bad way. I need you to check her out with me. Tell the others to hold positions and stay alert."

"Okay sir. I'll be with you in a second." O'Shea replied.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you Ryan." Stocks said coldly, as he was again scrutinising the Albratross through his rifle's scope. "We aren't alone out here."

- - - -

Marooned Chapter 4
Date: 26 October 2003, 7:08 PM

M A R O O N E D
---------------

CHAPTER 4

2102HRS 07-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
OVERLOOKING DROPSHIP LZ

"What are we supposed to be looking at?" Sergeant Ryan enquired, as he lay alongside Corporal Stocks as they both peered into the green glow of Stocks non-standard 6" viewscreen which he used instead of the standard optical sniper rifle scope.

"Wait a minute... wait a min- There! There it is!" Stocks whispered excitedly as it came into view.

"Oh Crap!" Ryan exclaimed, recognising a familiar outline.

"What have we got?" asked O'Shea, who had quietly made his way from the now stationary Warthog, and flopped down on the grass next to Ryan.

"A Covenant Elite," Ryan began, "complete with visual stealth camo. John wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't walked in front of the fire."

"How did you see it then?" O'Shea asked.

"Covenant stealth technology works if the wearer is stationary," Ryan began, "but if they move and you have a sharp eye and know what to look for, you can make them out no problem - especially if whatever they are standing in front of is moving randomly, like flames or water."

"Why would they use stealth camo at night?" O'Shea said in a puzzled way, "The power required by that kit to bend the lightwaves gives off a massive Infra Red signature that would stand out a mile."

"Maybe that's why they are so close to the fire - to mask their IR signature?" Stocks said, "You know - wait till we get in close and Blam! Hit us then?"

"I don't know." Ryan replied, "Maybe they don't think that our Infra-Red capability is that advanced. I'm sure that Garrett would back me up in saying that if we got within two hundred yards of it our kit could tell the difference between it and a fire."

"Well I don't know about you two, but I'm getting fed up of this shit." Stocks said impatiently as he snatched up his rifle and whilst taking aim, reached for the safety, "Maybe I should just drop this bastard now?"

"What the fuck are you doing?" exclaimed Ryan as he thrust his hand out and pushed the barrel of Stocks' sniper rifle into the ground, "we don't even know how many there are yet! They could have dozens of them laying low, waiting for us to make a move." Ryan beckoned back towards the dropship and the stealth Elite. "That bastard could just be a decoy to draw us out!"

"Sorry Ryan," Stocks answered, "I didn't think."

"Shit John," Ryan said, "How many situations have we been in like this? I would have expected this of Murray, but not of you. Are you losing it or something?"

Stocks didn't answer. He was embarrassed of his lack of thought. Something was troubling him and it was beginning to affect his work. He missed his wife and kids back on Reach. We wondered what they were doing right now. He had an aching sense of emptiness that wasn't homesickness. He'd had this empty feeling for weeks now but couldn't put his finger on it as to what it was.

"What are we going to do now?" asked O'Shea as he tracked the Elite with his own night vision binoculars, "set up camp for the night?"

Ryan was just about to answer when a burst of static came though the helmet comms.

"Heads up guys! We have a bogey inbound!" announced Garrett, his voice mixed with excitement and apprehension.

Ryan turned his head back towards the Warthog, "You got an ID yet? Is it one of ours?"

Seconds passed. More static on the comms. Ryan checked his helmet comms. Working fine. Why hadn't Garrett replied yet?

Finally the comms system came to life.

"Negative, ID is Covenant. Shit! Covenant Dropship on approach! ETA approximately one minute and forty seconds." Garrett replied.

Low on the horizon, a blue-purple light approached. As it closed on their position, the light resolved itself into the all too familiar U-Shaped hull of a Covenant dropship. The drone of the craft's antigravity generators steadily increased. That sound always sent a chill down Ryan's back.

"It just gets better and better!" Stocks muttered gloomily as he readied himself.

"Everybody, switch to VOX mode! Garrett! Murray! Shut down anything else with an power signature, and get yourselves and the Warthog under camouflage net - Fast!" Ryan yelled.

"Copy." Garrett and Murray replied in unison.

Ryan could hear the others at the Warthog as they hurried to deploy the camouflage. He hoped that the Covenant dropship pilot didn't have good night sight, or that the Elite stood by the downed dropship was hard of hearing.

The dropship continued its approach.

They must have seen us, Ryan thought. The bastard is on our vector.

"Listen up guys," Ryan broadcasted over the comms, "Covenant Dropship is on our vector. We are in their weapons range, but he might not have eyeballed us yet. Do not fire unless fired upon. Understand?"

"Understood." Replied Garrett, "But what if they do fire?"

"Pray that he's a crap shot." Ryan said as he got up from the ground. crouching with one knee on the ground and taking aim on the Covenant Dropship he added, "Aim for the anti-gravity generators where the blue energy field is!"

"Got that." Garrett answered.

Garrett was about to make another comment when the voice of private Murray cut in on the VOX comms system, "Oh man! What's that sme- Oh man! Zoran just shit himself!"

Ryan, Stocks and O'Shea sniggered for a second as they heard Garrett and Murray cursing at Zoran's lack of bowel control. Poor guy. Ryan was willing to bet that the nearest thing to a combat situation Zoran had ever been in was arguing for more funding from the UNSC's science division.

"What's my ETA guys?" Ryan called impatiently.

"Twenty seconds" Garrett replied.

"This is nuts!" Stocks hissed at Ryan, "We've gotta move! They're gonna frag us!"

Turning and grabbing Stocks by the front of his shirt Ryan snarled, "Stocks, this is not the time for your bullshit!" and pushing him away, he added, "Get a grip soldier! You haven't shit yourself as well mate?"

"I'm no chicken, Ryan" Stocks retorted, "This is suicide!"

"Objections noted soldier." Said Ryan, "We'll talk later."

Taking his aim up on the antigravity generators on the Covenant dropship, Ryan shouted into his comms "This is it!"

The dropship thundered overhead.

Five weapons tracking the Covenant dropship pivoted through 180 degrees as it continued towards the wreckage of the downed Albatross.

Stocks sighed loudly.

Ryan gave him a gentle push on his shoulder. "See? What were you worrying about?" Ryan said in what he thought was his most convincing voice. He looked down at his hands. They were shaking uncontrollably.

Turning back towards their Warthog, Ryan laughed over the comms, "Hands up everyone who needs cleans underwear apart from me and Zoran?"

"I heard that!" replied Garrett.

"Me too" added Murray.

"Ms Moore. You okay?" Ryan asked.

"Erm yeah." said Karen shakily over the Warthog's radio, "If I'd been pregnant, I've have popped the thing out by now. Zoran's not too good though."

"It's not over yet!" said Stocks who was watching the Covenant Dropship through his rifle's scope, "Looks like they're dropping more troops off."

"Sit tight people," said Ryan as he dropped to the ground next to Corporal Stocks.

Watching as the doors opened on the double hull of the dropship, three figures suddenly appeared, silhouetted against the fire, walking towards the giant gaping doors of the Covenant dropship. Elites.

So there had been more than one of them, Ryan thought to himself. It was a lucky thing that they didn't shoot at anything or it might have been a different story when that dropship did finally appear.

"Now I understand why those guys were out here," O'Shea whispered to Ryan and Stocks, "The area down there by the dropship and beyond is dry, almost desert. When it was daylight the temperature out here would be quite high. Their stealth camoflage's Infra Red signature would be masked by the ambient temperature and any visual cue to their presence could be mistaken for heat haze shimmer."

"Clever bastards." Stocks interjected.

"Those guys must have been here a while, waiting for anyone to come back and be ambushed!" O'Shea continued, "As it's dark now, stealth camo's of no use. So they were obviously waiting to be relieved of duty."

One Elite, and eight Grunts emerged from the dropship. The non-stealth Elite walked towards one of the three now-visible-Elites, whilst the other two boarded the dropship. The grunts gambolled about excitedly, within a few yards of the burning wreckage, darting their weapons to-and-fro, whilst making odd barking sounds. To Ryan, this seemed almost like some weird campfire ceremony.

The new Elite snapped a command at the Grunts, who immediately ceased their actions and took up positions around the wreckage.

The two remaining Elites appeared to be conversing, turning and pointing in various directions.

Must be the handover meeting, Ryan thought.

After a few more seconds, the stealth Elite boarded the dropship.

"Stand by people." Ryan advised, "Same drill as last time."

Stocks groaned. Last time was quite enough he thought, as far as close encounters goes.

The Covenant dropship slowly took off and headed away from the wreckage on the same heading it approached on before it landed, taking it over the desert ahead.

Stocks sighed in relief again.

"Garrett! Get me a fix on it's bearing", Ryan said.

"Got it." Garrett answered.

"Ok," announced Ryan, "as we now know what sort of numbers we're dealing with we can make a plan. For now, we should all get some sleep in rotation. O'Shea will come back to the Warthog and take first watch. Garrett and Murray will cover in turn - standard shift time people."

O'Shea climbed to his feet and headed off towards the Warthog.

"Switch back to normal comms setting," Ryan added, "I don't want to hear any snoring coming over on VOX."

Pausing for a second, Ryan added "I want everyone ready for action at least one hour before sunrise." and then disabled the VOX setting on his helmet comms.

Having waited until Corporal Stocks had done likewise with his comms system, Ryan looked Stocks in the eyes, and spoke sternly, "Ok John. Now you can tell me what that display of bullshit was for tonight!"

- more soon -

Marooned Chapter 5
Date: 17 November 2003, 1:58 PM

M A R O O N E D
---------------

CHAPTER 5

2156HRS 07-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
OVERLOOKING DROPSHIP LZ.

"What the fuck are were doing out here?" Corporal Stocks uttered, as he loosened his helmet's chin strap and carelessly cast the helmet aside. It clattered loudly on the hard ground.

Ryan's eyes widened. "John, What the hell has got into you?" he said angrily, glancing back at the Covenant contingent some 800 metres away at the crashed dropship. "They could have heard that!"

The fires in the wreckage of the crashed Albratross dropship still blazed, albeit at a lower intensity.

The Covenant contingent were no longer visible, even on Infra-Red, the cold night air masking the cool thermal signature given off by the Grunts' super-cooled methane-fed breathing apparatus. The Elite wasn't visible either - probably on the other side of the wreckage.

Ryan hoped that the Grunts didn't decide to wander off for a midnight snack as they probably wouldn't see the little bastards until it was too late.

The wind was still blowing towards Ryan's position, at a speed of a couple of knots as far as he could ascertain, the smoke from the burning wreckage steadily accending as some ghoulish sacrificial offering to the Covenant gods.

Looking up at the endless blanket of stars, Stocks sighed loudly and his shoulders sagged. He looked like a broken man. "What the fuck are we doing here?" Stocks repeated plainly as he turned to face Ryan again.

"Were you asleep when we were briefed back on Reach?" Ryan asked, incredulously.

"Of course not." Stocks replied, "Just fucking indulge me, okay?"

Ryan stared at Stocks momentarily. In twenty years of friendship and active service, he had never seen this side of John. He already had two liabilities to deal with, the scientist Zoran, and his assistant, Karen. The last thing he needed was having to babysit one of his own team, especially when that member was the best sniper among them all.

"Alright John," Ryan began, "So why do you think we're out here?"

"To kick some Covenant Arse - to take the war back to them." Stocks replied, "To make our families proud, and get some bloody glory and recogition for all of these years of being up to our eyes in shit and blood!"

"Glory, eh?" Ryan replied as he viewed John Stocks sideways, "That's not what we signed up for. We signed up to do our duty. If you were after glory and recognition you should have been a politician or movie star. Sure everyone who joins up during peacetime never thinks that they would have to go to war but we all should consider the real possibility that one day we would have to fight, and that we or our friends might never come home alive."

"I know." Stocks said, looking away at the dropship wreckage, nudging a nearby rock with his right boot, "But I never thought that we would be fighting to save our species' existance!"

"Look John," Ryan said, "At the end of the day, all we can ask for in life is that we have good mates to watch our back in combat, and that your wife and kids are waiting for you when you get back home. Or, at the very least that you and your mates survive to enjoy a few beers back at the mess hall."

"Yeah, and with a bit of good luck thrown in too!" Stocks added, "What about your family Ryan, how long ago since..."

"Twelve years", Ryan answered sharply.

"Didn't you ever think of remarrying?" Stocks asked.

"Not at first," Ryan said whilst fingering the wedding ring which he still had, attached to a chain around his neck, "After the Covenant came and took Clare away from me I didn't have time to think about anyone else - Christ John, she was pregnant - I never got to see my son!"

"I'm sorry Ryan," Stocks said, feeling emabarassed, "I never knew that Clare was pregnant at the time, talk about a double blow!" Stocks kicked the rock away and watched it roll a couple of metres before coming to rest against a larger stone.

"You know if it wasn't for the Covenant, and the UNSC needing every soldier they could get I'd have left the service by now. I knew that Clare wanted me to do so, but she never actually told me - maybe because she knew that this work was so important." Ryan put the ring back inside his shirt, "It's too late now to think about the past."

"You know Karen's got a quite a look of Clare hasn't she?" Stocks said, changing the subject, "I think that she's got the hots for you!"

"No way, John!" Ryan replied.

"Oh yes." Stocks said seriously, "I saw the way that she was looking at you when you were driving us back from the scientist's camp - she wasn't having any of Murray's sweet-talking crap."

Stocks paused for a second, then broke out into his trade-mark smirk, "Besides I saw you checking her arse out when she was bent over packing that instrumentation away - I'll bet you would have liked to pack your own instrument away somewhere on her!"

Ryan nearly gagged on his chocolate. "Come on John! I've just been talking about how much I miss my wife for a minute and you go suggesting that I should be slipping the girl one!"

"Maybe you should get laid, maybe then you'll chill out and stop being on my case so much!" Stocks replied, "I mean, how long has it been?"

"That's my Fucking businesss!" Ryan replied angrily, and was quiet for a second. He then fished inside one of his uniform pockets and Seconds later he produced two chocolate bars.

"Catch!" Ryan said as he tossed one of the bars at Stocks, "Bet you haven't eaten anything since this morning, right?"

Stocks caught the bar, ripped the wrapper off, and eagerly tucked into the chocolate. Ryan did likewise.

"I've figured out what's wrong with you." Ryan said between bites of the chocolate, "You miss your family, John, don't you?"

"Yeah", Stocks replied, through a mouthful of chocolate, "Is it that obvious?"

"Come on, why else would you bring up the issue of family life if it wasn't bothing you?" Ryan answered.

"I-I just have had this terrible feeling now for a week or so that something really bad has happened to them back on Reach. I don't know why I just do." Stocks said quietly.

"I wouldn't worry John." Ryan said, slapping Stocks on the back, "I'm sure that they're fine. If it's the Covenant that you're thinking of, you know as well as I do that Reach is probably the most heavily defended system we have - massive orbital MAC guns, and anything up to 250 warships in and around the system at anytime - it's like a fucking fortress!"

"I suppose so." Stocks answered unconvinced by Ryan's comments.

"Well the Covenant would have to bypass, what, at least a dozen outer colonies before they get to Reach and it seems unlikely that they'd do that considering how they've been so systematic at glassing the other outer colony systems so far." Ryan said before popping the last chunk of chocolate in his mouth.

"You know people high up in the ranks, how is the war going?" Stocks asked as he concentrated his attention on adjusting the scope on his sniper rifle.

"Not good." Ryan replied, as he took his helmet off and ran a hand through his matted hair, "The UNSC and even ONI are shit scared about the situation. They have realised that their strategy in the war against the Covenant has been fundamentally flawed. We can't fight a defensive war! Falling back and fighting a retreat is just wearing us down not only from a resources point of view but also in terms of morale. Basically, they have analysed the progress made by the Covenant over the years and have realised that we have maybe eight or nine months before the Covies get to Reach and then if they glass that system - however unlikely that is - that would give us another four to six months before they are knocking on Earth's back door!"

"Chirst! I didn't think things were so bad! Aren't the Spartans helping to slow them down?" Stocks asked.

"Yes, but that only buys us time to evacuate people and supplies from that particular planet before the Covenant just bring on more ships and glass the planet." Ryan answered, "We can only win space battles where we outnumber them by at least three to one, and usually the numbers are the other way around."

"I know." Stocks said, shaking his head. "So where do we come into this?"

"Realising that the extinction of the human race was maybe two years away, ONI sanctioned some, er, let's say, inventive measures." Ryan said as he gazed skyward for a few seconds. Looking back at Stocks, Ryan continued, "John, before we discovered slipspace, in the early days of mankind's spaceflights we used chemical rocket engines, and later on ion drives."

"Yes, the ion drives were more fuel efficient than chemical rocket engines, but they were really slow." Stocks answered.

"That's right," Ryan said, "They were used on the colony ships that were sent from Earth about four hundred years ago in an attempt to colonize nearby star systems. Ion drive technology was the best option available at the time given the vast distances that they would have to cross. These colony ships were immense vessels, containing 250,000 people in cryogenic stasis, plants and animals were also in stasis along with seed samples and embryos of all available species at the time - a snapshot of life on earth back then - sort of Noah's Ark if you like, except that they built twelve."

"What happened to them?" Stocks asked.

"When slipspace technology came online, the twelve original vessels were found and their courses logged. Before treaties came into effect protecting the colony ships, two of them were plundered by pirates, and later one ship just 'disappeared' without trace." Ryan said.

"So what has this got to do with our fleet out here, we're dozens of lightyears away from those ships!" Stocks replied, scratching his head.

"Well as I said, ONI did something VERY inventive. Realising that the legacy of mankind's existance is at stake they violated the treaty on the protection of the colony ships by instructing UNSC vessels to intercept and retrieve the colony ships, although they gave strict instructions not to disturb the vessel's contents." Ryan answered.

"How they hell did they do that?" Stocks said in amazement.

"You know the mobile repair and refit vessels?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah." Stocks replied.

"They flew some of those out there to rendevous with the colony ships, where they refitted them with slipstream technology and fitted new computer cores, complete with AI. They also gave the ships false registry codes and disguised them as heavy freighters before taking the vessels to separate muster points - one of those being at Reach where the UNSC's 3rd Exploratory Fleet - of which the Sheffield is a part of - was waiting to receive three of them."

"Whoa, slow down Ryan", Stocks said. "So the three mysterious packages that the fleet are carrying aren't the Spartan soldiers?"

"Who said we had any Spartans?" Ryan said, raising an eybrow.

"I dunno'" said Stocks, "I've heard many rumours."

"I heard something similar." said Ryan, "A story that all but three of the Spartans were recalled back to Reach for reasons unknown. What I do know is that the fleet's mission now is to avoid engagement with the Covenant and look for somewhere new for mankind to setup in case Earth gets glassed."

"So is that why we have the scientists stopping at every habitable world and taking samples?" Stocks asked.

"Exactly, except I don't think that we'll be diverting the rest of the fleet to this system after what's happened here in the last twenty-four hours!" Ryan replied.

"Oh Shit!" said Stocks dejectedly, realising the full implications of the fleet's mission. "So that means we'll not be going back! We were all told that this was a three months stint. I never got chance to say goodbye to Maria and Lisa properly! Fucking Hell!"

With that Stocks kicked the nearest rock with some force, sending it tumbling off the edge of the cliff overlooking the dried lake-bed of the LZ.

"Sorry Ryan" Stocks said, realising he could have drawn the Covenant's attention to them by his rash act, "I promised that I'd be back for Lisa's sixth birthday!"

"Who's Birthday?" A voice said from behind.

Turning around Ryan and Stocks were greeted by Private Garrett approaching, with his assault rifle slung over his right shoulder.

"Time to relieve your watch, Ryan." Garrett said cheerfully.

"I see you managed to get some shut-eye then" said Ryan.

"Yeah, despite Zoran's snoring." Garrett replied, "Maybe you should gagg him or something?"

"I just might do that" Ryan answered as he got to his feet, turned to face Corporal Stocks and offered his hand out to pull Stocks up off the ground. "C'mon let's go."

Ryan and Stocks slowly walked back towards the Warthog.


-------

Author's Note: This has been some time in the writing due to demands from work and family. I thought that it was a convenient point to bring some history in to explain why Ryan and his men are in the current predicament, light-years from human space.

Marooned Chapter 6
Date: 26 November 2003, 3:36 PM

M A R O O N E D
---------------

CHAPTER 6

0352HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
MAKESHIFT CAMP, NEAR DROPSHIP LZ.

As outer airlock door silently slid open before Ryan, he grabbed the handles that ran down either side of the door and quickly pulled himself inside the octagonal cross sectioned chamber. He had to hold his arms out to prevent himself crashing into other door at the opposite end of the ten foot long airlock chamber. Turning around to face the outer door, his helmet visor was illuminated by a bright flash. Ryan tore his eyes away from the light as his visor automatically tinted to attempt to compensate. That explosion was close.

In the gloom of the airlock chamber, Ryan pushed off the inner airlock door towards the airlock control panel. He hit the large red button with a gloved fist. The airlock cycle began.

Red lights along the ceiling pulsed on and off as the outer door slowly closed. Ryan felt a slight thump as the door finally closed. Amber lights pulsed gently and vents near the ceiling and floor opened as jets of gas blasted into the chamber. The gravity plating in the chamber activated, increasing the g-rating slowly allowing Ryan to plant his feet safely on the deck plating.

Ryan glanced at the atmospheric pressure gauge, located on the wrist of his spacesuit. The reading held steady at 0.9 bar.

Reaching behind his head, Ryan broke the seal on his helmet, accompanied by a brief hiss of escaping air.

Removing his helmet, Ryan putt one arm through the now opened visor of the helmet, and with the other arm reached out to activate the inner airlock door...

Suddenly Ryan felt a blast of heat from behind together with a loud thud that characterized the impact of a Covenant plasma weapon. The peaceful calm of the airlock, complete with the low hum of the life-support systems was instantly transformed to that of a raging hurricane. The atmosphere of the airlock was being blown into space through a jagged hole the size of beach ball.

Ryan tried to grab hold anything to prevent him being blasted through the hole, but was carried backwards towards the outer door. Hitting his head against the wall, the last thing Ryan saw was a mist of red.

---------

"Wake up Ryan!" shouted a familiar voice.

Ryan opened his eyes to find Corporal Stocks crouched on the floor and leaning over, holding him by the lapels, and shaking him vigorously.

"Get the fuck off me, man." Ryan yelled.

"You got it" said Stocks, releasing him.

Ryan fell several inches back to the his roll-mat laid on the floor, whilst still laid within his sleeping bag.

"Where am I?" asked Ryan.

"Miserable ball of rock - millions of light years from anywhere. Babysitting scientists - one with loose bowels, and a host of aliens waiting to rip out throats out. That sound familiar?" Stocks replied sarcastically.

"Shit." Ryan said, rolling over in his sleeping bag.

"It sounded like you were having a nightmare." said Stocks. "You still getting them over the airlock accident you were in?"

"Yeah", groaned Ryan, "It always comes back to haunt me at the times when I have alot of stress to deal with in life."

"Come on. Let's grab a bite to eat." said Stocks.

--------


0447HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
MAKESHIFT CAMP, NEAR DROPSHIP LZ.

"Sling me another can of beans, Murray." yelled O'Shea as he stirred the contents of the rectangular aluminum canteen with a metal spoon. Underneath it a small stove spluttered its' blue propane flame.

Seconds later a can sailed through the air in O'Shea's direction, silhouetted against the faint glow of blue light creeping over the horizon. Dawn was approaching fast.

"Thanks, mate." O'Shea said, catching the can in his right hand. "Can you check for a spare gas canister?"

"Hang on a minute." replied Murray from under the canopy of camouflage net hiding the Warthog. He rummaged among a sea of small crates hastily unpacked from the back of the all terrain reconnaissance vehicle.

"Oh, and don't throw the fucker this time!" O'Shea called out.

--------------

On the other side of the camp Ryan stood sipping coffee from a dented stainless steel cup. He stared out across the lakebed towards the dark mountains on the horizon, deep in thought. The vapour from the hot coffee swirled infront of his eyes in the cold early morning air. Next to him Private Garrett sat on the ground, busily tapping away on a small laptop computer.

"Okay Ryan" said Garrett as he continued to type, "I've got the terrain map of the LZ."

"Good." said Ryan, tuning back into reality. "We can plan our attack now. How long till sunrise?"

"Fifteen minutes" Garrett replied.

"Shit, I thought we had more time." Ryan answered.

Ryan turned around to retrieve his helmet from the Warthog that was parked nearby, and was greeted by Karen walking towards him. She wore a tight dark green t-shirt, her long dark hair flowing onto her shoulders, and her grey flight suit was unfastened, the top half being tied around her waist.

"Hi!" she beamed as she approached.

"Hi" Said Ryan, taking another sip of coffee. "You and Zoran sleep okay?" Ryan asked, his voice slightly tinged with disdain.

"What?" Karen replied with a look of horror on her face, "Me and Zoran? You've gotta be joking right?"

Ryan coughed nervously, "Er, maybe I could have phrased that better... I mean you guys aren't used to roughing it eh?"

Karen smiled back at him.

Ryan wondered if she had picked up on his veiled question about whether or not she was involved with Zoran.

As she brushed past Ryan, she locked eyes with him and purred, "You know I don't mind a bit of rough..."

Ryan stood speechless.

Karen looked out across the lakebed and shivered. and turned back towards Ryan, who was still holding the cup of coffee.

"Coffee! Great!" she said, and as she moved closer asked, "Do you mind if I have a sip?"

"Be my guest." Ryan replied as he handed her the steaming cup.

Ryan watched as she took the cup in two hands and took a mouthful.

"Mmmmmm" Karen said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, "I needed something hot to warm me up this morning. Thanks."

Karen placed one hand inside the hip pocket of her flight suit and produced a hair bobble. With the other hand she offered the cup back to Ryan.

In a swift movement she took the bobble and reached up with both hands behind her head to fasten her hair in ponytail.

As she carried out the action, Ryan couldn't help but notice that Karen wasn't wearing a bra - she obviously didn't need one - her erect nipples showing through her tight t-shirt.

For a second time since their first meeting Ryan began to feel uncomfortable. He tried to look away, but his eyes kept lingering on her chest.

"I can see you're busy," said Karen, glancing at Garrett who was also pretending not to notice her chest, "I'll, er, give the guys a hand with breakfast shall I?" With that she slinked off under the camoflage net canopy.

Ryan waited until Karen was out of earshot. "Fuck me!" he said putting his hands up on the back of his head and stretching.

"I reckon that she had the same thing on her mind." laughed Garrett, "Couldn't have been more obvious if she'd have gotten them out for you!" Garrett continued typing for a few seconds and them paused. "Murray's gonna be well pissed off now he's not in the running!"

"Not a fucking word Travis! To anyone, especially Stocks!" Ryan said sternly. "If he finds out, every fucker and his dog will know!"

--------------

0458HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
MAKESHIFT CAMP, NEAR DROPSHIP LZ.

Ryan stood infront of his team, which sat quietly beneath the camoflage net canopy.

"Alright people" Ryan announced, "The plan is We hit them hard and fast. I'll break out the second S2 AM. Stocks and I will try to take out the Elite as the main target, and mop up as many Grunts as we can before they scatter."

Turning to face Sean O'Shea and Steve Murray, Ryan continued, "You guys man the Warthog. Take it around the rim of the LZ, and down the scree onto the lakebed. Pick off or run down any of the little bastards that try to make it into the canyons to the north."

The two men nodded in affirmation.

Ryan turned to Private Garrett, "Travis, I'm sorry but you get babysitting duty. Whilst you are doing that I need you to get your equipment set up and monitor for any local Covenant radio chatter - see if your box of tricks can decipher anything."

"I'm good, but not that good!" Garrett replied, whilst fiddling with a small rectangular object that was attached to a chain around his neck, that was alongside his dog-tags. "I can monitor and record any transmissions, but I'll need to use an AI to make any sense of what's going on, and we're not exactly tripping up over the hardware necessary to facilitate the use of one right now!"

"Noted." said Ryan, "Do what you can. I want to know in good time whether or not that dropship is on it's way back here with re-inforcements."

"What about us?" asked Karen hopefully.

"Sit tight until we secure the LZ." Ryan replied.

Turning back towards the rest of his team, Ryan concluded, "Is almost sunrise. Let's bag ourselves some Covenant scum!"

MAROONED Chapter 7
Date: 13 December 2003, 4:29 PM

M A R O O N E D

CHAPTER 7

0500HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
MAKESHIFT CAMP, NEAR DROPSHIP LZ.

The Albatross-Class dropship lay as a charred and twisted mess of metal out on the lakebed LZ. The reinforced cross sections of the craft curved upwards, exposed like the open rib cage of an animal that had been devoured and picked clean by vultures. All that was missing was a bunch of bird-like Jackals to make the scene complete. Although the fires in the wreckage had now died down, grey-black smoke continued to ascend into the rapidly brightening sky.

Long streamers of wispy-white clouds stretched overhead - high altitude Cirrus clouds consisting of ice crystals - their long trails following the route of the prevailing winds high over the planet.

Sergeant Ryan and Corporal Stocks weren't concerned with such things as the weather as they slowly moved along the cliff edge overlooking the LZ.

Ryan moved ahead of Stocks whilst in a low crouch, holding his sniper rifle mid-way along the Stock, making his way towards a group of large boulders.

Stocks crept along in a crouching position following Ryan - shouldering his S2 AM sniper rifle, scanning the LZ in slow sweeps - his face taking on a familiar pale green tinge in the light of the rifles' scope.

"These should provide some temporary cover." Ryan hissed as they finally reached the boulders.

"I know" whispered Stocks, whilst still engrossed in his rifle scope, "We'll have to move after a couple of shots. Although they might not see the contrails from each round in this light, they will see the muzzle flash as we haven't got any suppressors fitted."

"We don't need those anyway," replied Ryan, "the reduction in muzzle velocity caused by a flash suppressor at this range could change what would normally be an instant kill into a severe wounding instead."

Stocks got down on the ground in the Prone position, laid on his stomach with his legs spread in a 'V' with his toes pointed out, bending his right knee slightly. His rifle butt was pressed firmly into his right shoulder with his upper arm, lower arm, and rifle stock forming a stable triangle as his right elbow rested on the ground. His left arm held the underside of the rifle stock, whilst the rifle rested on it two-legged rest. Stocks took deep, relaxed breaths, preparing to shoot as he continued to survey the LZ through his rifles' scope.

Only three of the eight Grunts were visible. One of them paced slowly around the wreckage, plasma pistol in it's claw, whilst the other visible two sat motionless on the ground, obviously sleeping. The Elite was not evident, probably on the other side of the wreckage.

"Where is O'Shea?" asked Stocks irritatedly, "He should be providing the diversion by now!"

As if on cue, the tranquillity of the LZ was transformed by the deep growl of the Warthog as it began it's run along the top of the cliff edge.

A series of cries of alarm came from the Covenant camp as the Grunts spotted the Warthog and fired their weapons, the green plasma bolts hopelessly missing the Warthog which was out of range of their plasma discharges.

"Ok, Let's do it!" said Ryan, who also lay in a sniping position several feet away from Stocks.

John Stocks gave a slight nod in acknowledgement, and as he slowly exhaled, he gently squeezed the trigger of his rifle using the ball of his finger end. The shot rang out, and the Grunt that was unfortunate enough to be crossing Stocks' sights at that moment collapsed to the ground, it's head ventilated with an extra nostril that passed through both temples of its' head, courtesy of the 14.5 x 114mm armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot round. Bright blue blood lay splattered over the blackened hull of the Albatross.

In quick succession, Ryan and Stocks cut down the other two Grunts facing their position. The bodies' of the small aliens twitched uncontrollably, convulsing as they asphyxiated in the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere after Ryan and Stocks ruptured the Grunts' methane-fed breathing apparatus with several well-placed shots.

Sean O'Shea, reached the end of the cliff overlooking the LZ and swung the Warthog round and down the scree slope towards the lakebed below.

Murray laid down diversionary fire from the Warthog's Light Anti-Aircaft Gun (LAAG) as the Warthog descended the scree slope, the yellow-white tracers gave an impressive display as it arced across the LZ in response to the green and cyan Covenant plasma discharges.

Ryan and Stocks got up from the ground and made a crouching run to an new position overlooking the LZ, both men loading fresh magazines into their rifles as went. The last thing they wanted was to stay in a position where the Covenant could locate them either by the contrails given off each time the sniper rifle was fired or by the rifles' muzzle flash.

"Where is it?" said Stocks impatiently, checking that the fresh magazine was loaded correctly into his S2 AM, and cycling the rifle's bolt to cock the firing mechanism. "Where ar- There you are!" said Stocks as the main target presented itself.

The blue Elite emerged from behind the Dropship, barking orders and directing the remaining Grunts.

"Look at the arrogant bastard!" Stocks continued, "Got to be the centre of attention, hasn't he?"

"Yeah, but not for much longer!" Ryan replied, and with that he aimed and fired. A split second later a similar round was launched from Stocks' rifle.

The round from Ryan's rifle pierced the helmet and skull of the Elite, killing it instantly - half of it's head blown off as the round messily exited the other side of the Elite's helmet.

Stock's shot followed up by tearing through the Elite's neck, with the remains of it's head flopping over, hanging pathetically from a piece of skin whilst it's still twitching body slumped to the ground.

"Nice work." said Ryan as he aimed at another Grunt that appeared from behind the wreckage.

"None too shabby yourself, mate. But just watch this!" replied Stocks, who had waited until two Grunts were lined up in his sights. He calmly squeezed the trigger again, and watched another two enemies topple over. "How about that Ryan? Two birds with one stone!" he grinned.

"Hey let's not get cocky, alright?" Ryan laughed in reply.

Ryan watched as the Warthog raced towards the downed dropship, LAAG blazing.

"O'Shea, how are you doing down there?" yelled Ryan into his helmet comms.

"Just fine." replied O'Shea over the roar of the Warthog engine, "We'd be even better if Murray had actually hit anything yet! The last three Grunts are bugging out, making a run for the rough ground towards the openings of those canyons. We -" A burst of static interrupted O'Shea's statement.

"O'Shea? You still there? Copy?" Ryan shouted.

Another burst of static followed.

"Ryan? Ryan? O'Shea here. The Warthog took an overcharged plasma shot, temporarily distrupting the onboard electrical system, I think. We got one of the last three Grunts, it's wrapped around the front passenger-side wheel. The other two made it into the canyon. There's too many large boulders to get around. I've never seen those guys move so fast!"

"They got away?" Ryan yelled incredulously, "What was Murray doing? Fucking Sightseeing?"

"I was going to mention that to you" O'Shea replied. Murray took the hit. I'm not sure how bad it is yet."

"Fucking marvelous!" Ryan exclaimed, and punched the ground with his fist.

"Hey that's my line!" laughed Stocks.

Ryan shot Stocks a look that could turn someone to stone.

-----

0521HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
MAKESHIFT CAMP, NEAR DROPSHIP LZ.

"What do you think happened, O'Shea?" asked Ryan as he kicked a piece of the smouldering remains of the Albatross with one of his steel-toecapped combat boots.

"I mean this thing was more heavily armoured than the Pelican."

"If it wasn't for the Covenant here" replied O'Shea, "I'd have been tempted to put it down to some kind of equipment failure, maybe a catastrophic failure of the onboard hydraulics system, or an electrical failure."

"That could bring it down?" said Ryan, peering into the jumbled mess of twisted metal.

"The problem is that this is new technology," said O'Shea examining a section of the Albatross's engine air intakes. It was damaged almost beyond recognition. "It's a design that hasn't been out in the field more than nine months, if that. It could have been equipment failure, or simply that the pilot tried to get it to do something it wasn't designed for."

"For example?" asked Ryan, cocking his head on one side, and folding his arms across his stomach.

"For example, take this air intake." said O'Shea, "Like the Pelican, the Albatross is configured for two flight modes. One of them is for space and non-oxygen atmospheres where this air intake is automatically sealed and the engines burn the fuel with O2 from stored oxygen tanks. The second flight mode is where the air intake opens and the engines operate as a typical turbine bladed jet-engine."

"So where are you leading with this?" said Ryan.

"Without the benefit of analysing the on-board black boxes for telemetry and cockpit recordings, I'd say that it was a mixture of pilot error, and the Covenant catching the crew unawares that caused this. It then led to a catastrophic failure of the engines. I reckon that the Albatross was attempting a lift-off at the time the failure occurred - look at the way the thing is resting with it's nose in the air - it definitely looks like it took off too steeply and stalled."

"So our guys fucked up then?" said Ryan dismissively.

"Erm, yes," winced O'Shea, "The pilot should have never attempted such a steep takeoff using the turbine engines alone. Without a rolling start to get a decent airflow through the engines, the dropship would never have had enough thrust to stay airborne. The guy probably forgot that he was flying something three times larger and heavier than the run-of-the-mill Pelican!" Looking closely at the air intake again, O'Shea continued, "Looks like the Covenant got lucky with a plasma grenade thrown straight into the air intake. When that thing went off, it would already have been sucked right inside the engine turbines and torn the ship apart from the inside! If the pilot had closed the air intakes, and switched to spaceflight mode, the engines would be operating at full power and the grenade probably wouldn't have hit at all."

"Yeah, and we wouldn't be sat here in this mess now!" said Ryan.

"Correct." Said O'Shea.

"Fucking great. Now what?" Said Ryan.

------
Author's Note: Apologies for the delay this being due to writer's block.

Marooned Chapter 8
Date: 18 December 2003, 1:45 PM

M A R O O N E D - CHAPTER EIGHT
-------------------------------

0545HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
MAKESHIFT CAMP, DROPSHIP LZ.

The sun was creeping up over the horizon, it's golden rays throwing a slight yellow hue over the landscape, The crashed dropship cast a long shadow over the lakebed.

Private Garrett and Zoran were several hundred metres away from the wreckage, conducting a search for any weapons left by the fleeing Covenant, with orders to survey the entrance to the canyons also.

Apart from the weapons collected at the dropship crash site - where the slaughter had taken place - out near the edge of the lakebed they had recovered only one plasma pistol and two plasma grenades, which now were carried within a large bag that was slung over Zoran's left shoulder.

Garrett accompanied Zoran with his Assault Rifle at the ready, just in case the two Grunts that had made it to the canyons had decided to hang around. He had missed out on the action before and was now eager to unleash a barrage of 7.62mm armour-piercing death if necessary. Garrett still felt like he was babysitting, and wondered if he had offended Ryan in some way in order to have been assigned such a duty again, perhaps as some kind of punishment.

Both men continued their sweep of the lakebed, slowly making their way toward the mouths of the boulder-strewn canyons.

----

Of the weapons recovered At the dropship LZ, there was one Covenant Plasma rifle with an eighty-five percent charge, two fully loaded Needler guns (their previous owners didn't mange to fire off a single round), three plasma pistols in varying states of charge, and eight plasma grenades. The weapons' previous owners - the fallen Covenant - including the 'road-kill' Grunt had been dragged away and dumped at the edge of the LZ downwind of their position, whilst the cache of captured weapons now lay piled up in the passenger seat of the Warthog.

The Warthog was parked several metres away from the wreckage of the dropship, complete with a makeshift desert camouflage-net canopy erected over it. The injured private Murray lay semi-conscious on a roll-mat on the ground underneath the canopy, being tended to by Corporal Stocks and Karen. Several medi-kits lay opened on the ground next to Private Murray. Several white dressings covered a large plasma burn that stretched from Murray's chest to his left shoulder.

Taking a small package out of one of the medi-kits, Stocks removed a pre-packed syringe. As he wiped Murray's right arm with an antiseptic pad, Stocks held the syringe with the other hand and pulled the sealing cap off the end of the needle with his teeth, spitting the cap out of his mouth. Holding the syringe up to the light with the needle pointing up vertically, he pressed the plunger in slightly, whilst flicking the body of the syringe, making sure no air bubbles remained. Stocks then stuck the needle into Murray's arm and administered the sedative. Removing the needle, Stocks finally spoke. "There. That'll keep the pain off for a while."

"Will he be okay, John?" Karen asked as she sat on her knees on the other side of the now unconscious Private Murray. She peered over Murray, using her left hand to steady herself. As she leaned forwards, several locks of her hair, not held by her ponytail fell forwards to obscure her view, which she tucked behind her right ear using her other hand.

"Yeah," replied Stocks whilst busy packing the surplus sealed packs of dressings and medical supplies back into their respective cases, "It's a nasty second degree burn. Thankfully his body armor took most of the blast, but it's made a mess of his chest. We'll have to change the dressing every six hours of so."

"What are we going to do now?" said Karen, "The dropship is destroyed. How are we going to get off this rock?"

"Ryan's working on it. Don't worry, we've been in worse situations than these." Stocks replied, trying to convince himself of his own statement.

A brief burst of static preceded Ryan's voice over Stocks' helmet comms, "Stocks, meet me at the wreckage for a situation update."

"I'm Just clearing up here with Murray. I'll be with you in a minute." Stocks replied.

----

Sergeant Ryan stood with Private O'Shea next to the wreckage.

"Something's wrong," said Ryan as he looked skyward for a few seconds. "Its' over twelve hours since our last radio contact with the Sheffield. They should have sent another dropship to investigate by now... unless..." his voice trailed off.

"Unless the Sheffield has been compromised in some way!" O'Shea interrupted.

"If that's the case, then our options are limited, to say the least." Said Ryan as he removed his helmet and yawned, running his right hand through his hair. "Are you sure that there's no way that we can salvage any equipment from the Albatross and contruct a radio powerful enough to contact the Sheffield?"

"Not possible." said O'Shea, shaking his head. "We can't even get at the black boxes. Me and Garrett have been over this piece of shit already. It looks like The Covenant threw a couple of extra plasma grenades on for overkill and its' melted and fused everything together."

"Problems?" asked Stocks who had just approached the two men conversing beside the Dropship wreckage.

"Nothing that growing a pair of wings and flying back up there wouldn't solve." Ryan replied sarcastically.

"Best leave the sarcasm to me." Stocks grinned, "I'm better at it than you."

"Whatever." Ryan replied.

"How's the patient, John?" asked O'Shea.

"Not bad, all things considered." Stocks replied, gazing into the distance towards Garrett and Zoran, out on the edge of the lakebed. "He's got a bad second degree burn, but he should pull through."

"We're going to have to move him." said Ryan, "We have to follow those Grunts, I think they've got maybe half an hours' headstart on us. If they get word back of our presence, we're in big trouble!"

Suddenly a burst of static came through the comms system. It was Prvate Garrett.

Ryan placed his helmet back on his head. "Garrett? Ryan here. Go ahead."

"Ryan, We need O'Shea out here... We've found something!" Garrett replied.

"What is it?" Ryan replied.

"Another Warthog." Garrett answered.

"Another Wart- The second science team!" Ryan exclaimed.

----

Author's Note: Apologies if this is not as good as previous chapters, this chapter is merely 'a bridge' to more action-filled installments.

Marooned - Chapter Nine
Date: 22 December 2003, 12:53 PM

M A R O O N E D - CHAPTER NINE
------------------------------

0557HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
AT ENTRANCE TO CANYONS, EDGE OF DROPSHIP LZ.

The charred remains of the Warthog lay at the mouth of one of the canyons, resting on the driver's side in a large area of sand and silt that was littered with rounded boulders of varying sizes. The back end of the vehicle had melted and congealed together, whilst the front end of the vehicle appeared to be virtually undamaged. The same could not be said of the driver.

"The back end took a direct hit from a fuel rod gun I'd say." said O'Shea walking around the half melted Warthog. "Poor guy didn't stand a chance."

"No shit." said Ryan, as he leaned over the charred body of the driver and attempted to remove the soldier's tags. The heat from the blast had melted the chain into the driver's neck.

"No other tracks here other than two Grunts heading the opposite way." Said O'Shea, looking at the ground around the wrecked Warthog. "That means someone fired from on top of the cliffs up there..." he said pointing up above them, "...or the Covies have got at least one Banshee flyer."

"Banshees? Shit. That's all we need." said Ryan as he yanked on the chain around the driver's neck.

Finally the tags came away with a sickening tear of the burned and blistered skin. Ryan tasted bile in his mouth and fought back with all his might against the overwhelming desire to vomit.

Ryan examined the tags. He knew of this man, it was Corporal John Coultas, of Sergeant Guerra's fire-team. They had been assigned to look after the second science team on the surface. The poor guy had died a terrible death; burned alive and flash-melted into the chassis of the Warthog.

"Was anyone on the LAAG?" Ryan asked.

"Hmmm, if they were, there's not much left." said Garrett who had until now, remained silent. "The main reason why I called you guys out here was to get O'Shea to check out the front wheel assembly here and see if we can cannibalize it for other Warthog we left behind before we got to the LZ."

"Ok then." said Ryan, "Get onto it. Work quickly, we don't have much time!"

-----

0635HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
INSIDE CANYONS, FOLLOWING TRAIL OF COVENANT GRUNTS

"I do not think this is a good idea Sergeant." said Zoran as he walked behind Ryan and Stocks in the early morning gloom of the canyon. The gradient gradually increased as they progressed deeper inside.

"You suddenly become a military expert have you?" laughed Stocks as he momentarily broke off from scanning the top of the canyon walls with his sniper rifle.

"No, but I am a geology expert, Mr Stocks" Zoran replied smugly.

Ryan stopped. Lowering his assault rifle, he turned to face the scientist. "Okay Zoran. I suppose this is the bit where I get the geology lesson. So what's wrong then?"

"The lakebed we just left is from an ephemeral lake." answered Zoran.

"A what?" said Stocks.

"A feature created by seasonal rains, if I remember correctly. Is that right Zoran?" Ryan asked.

"Impressive, Sergeant Ryan." Zoran replied, "You are correct, but I fear you have missed some other important details."

"Like what?" said Ryan inquisitively.

"The triangular silt deposits at the mouth of the canyons? All of those boulders strewn around as well?" Zoran asked.

Ryan kicked one of the smooth pebbles littering the canyon floor. "Your point being?"

"The triangular areas of silt are alluvial fans, and these aren't just canyons, they're Wadis." Zoran Replied.

"Crap!" Ryan exclaimed, suddenly recalling the significance of the situation.

"Will somebody let me in on what's going on here? What the hell is a Wadi?" Stocks said, irritated at being in the dark over the subject matter.

"A Wadi is an Arabic term for these canyons, Mr Stocks." Zoran replied. "Unfortunately they are subject to flash-flooding. That is the reason why you see the silt materials and boulders deposited at the mouth of the Wadis. If there have been rains recently, then we are in danger. More people die in deserts due to flash-flooding than those who die because of lack of water!"

Stocks looked at Zoran in disbelief, and turned to Ryan. "He's pulling my leg, right?"

"I wish he was Stocks." Ryan said, scratching the stubble on the side of his chin, "Yesterday when we picked up Zoran in the valley, I heard thunder, and saw dark clouds over this direction."

"That could have been the dropship exploding and the smoke from the wreckage." Stocks replied.

"Well, I'm not taking any chances." said Ryan as he slung his assault rifle over his right shoulder, "We're going to have to climb up the canyon walls."

Marooned Chapter Ten
Date: 29 December 2003, 3:34 PM

MAROONED - CHAPTER TEN
----------------------

0705HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
CLIMBING CANYON WALL, NEAR DROPSHIP LZ

"Explain to me again why we're doing this?" panted Stocks as he struggled to reach the next hand-hold. He reached up as far as he could but his left foot slipped. "Shite!" he exclaimed as he scrambled to hold onto anything that might prevent his fall backwards onto the canyon floor. He slid down several feet, striking his chin on a rock. More obscenities followed.

These boots are totally useless for this job, thought Stocks. If it were for making a Grunt eat steel-toecaps, especially when following up a smack from the butt of a MA5B Assault Rifle, now that was different.

"Remember when we found Zoran yesterday? We could hear distant thunder and saw all of those black clouds?" said Ryan who was totally unaware of Stocks' difficulties, being some ten feet above the Corporal.

Not hearing a response, Ryan stopped and looked down at Stocks, trying not to loose his footing.

"What?" said Stocks irritatedly. His chin still smarted.

"It might have rained." replied Ryan.

"If it did rain over the mountains," interrupted Zoran, "it would probably take a day for the waters to reach this place, and with the canyon being to so narrow we would all be swept away."

"Look, I'm just a soldier." Stocks shouted back. "I get told to go shoot some fucker and I do it, I'm not interested in weather forecasting, or climbing for that matter either!"

"Zoran? Er, what sort of notice would we get before a flash-flood?" asked Ryan as he watched the scientist continue to climb above him. "And how come you're so good at this climbing? I didn't think you scientists were into physical stuff like this?"

Zoran stopped and thought for a second. "There wouldn't be much of a warning," he smugly replied, "that's the beauty of why they call them flash-floods."

"That's the beauty of why they call them flash floods..." Stocks muttered in derision back at the scientist. "Wanker!" he added under his breath.

Ryan laughed having heard Stocks comments, but he was not impressed with the scientist. However, as he was not a climber himself he felt somewhat at the mercy of Zoran's climbing experience but said nothing. Not yet anyway.

Besides, there was some tactical advantage of getting up off the canyon floor. If the Covenant were to attack, it would most likely come from the top of the canyon walls or from a Banshee. It they were on the canyon floor it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Looking down at the floor of the Wadi, Ryan thought he saw movement.

"I love climbing." Said Zoran in his Swedish accent, "In my country, due to the high latitude it is dark for most of the year, so when it is light I like to get out and enjoy the daylight. Actually, I prefer ice-climbing to the free climbing that we are doing now. At least I'd have the added security of using ice axes, ropes and cramp-"

"Zoran?" Ryan interrupted, tired of the man's boring speech. He looked down into the gloom of the Wadi. He certain he saw movement on the ground.

"What is it?" Zoran snapped, irritated at being interupted.

"There!" pointed Ryan. "Is that enough notice of a flood?"

"Er, yes" replied Zoran, viewing a small stream of water running down the canyon floor, "Looks like we are just in time."

"In time for what?" asked Stocks, daring to take a look below him. "What's that noise?"

A distant hissing sound, combined with a low rumble grew steadily, until suddenly a wall of water swept around the bend of the canyon.

"Shit!" yelled Stocks as he began to scramble up the rock face as fast as he could.

The water roared past some thirty feet below him, carrying rocks and boulders of varying sizes, some as large as a Warthog.

The three men clung onto the rocks and watched in an almost surreal way as over the sound of the water came two distinct cries - the voices of the two escaped Grunts - barking, yelping and screaming almost in a comical way as they were swept past them back towards the LZ.

Stocks, Ryan and Zoran looked at each other in amazement.

Finally Stocks spoke. "Fuck me!" He said as he struggled to hold on to the rocks, "If only I'd been able to get at my rifle. It would have been like shooting fish in a barrel!"

Ryan laughed out loud, whilst activating his helmet comms. "Garrett? O'Shea? You guys copy?" He shouted into the microphone.

"We read you... barely." replied Garrett over a terrible hiss. Ryan couldn't tell if it was due to some static interference or the sound of the water.

"What's your status?" Ryan yelled back.

"The salvaged wheel assembly is fitt-" began Garrett, but was cut off mid sentence by a burst of static.

"Garrett? You still there?" replied Ryan.

"Yeah." answered Garrett. "We can hardly hear you. You're at extreme range for the comms. We'll be heading into the canyon as soon as O'Shea is happy were in-"

Static hissed angrily again.

"Negative! Negative!" screamed Ryan, "Canyon is flooded. LZ will be wet in minutes! Hold position over looking the lake."

"Affirmative." replied Garrett.

"Oh, and one last thing," Ryan added. "There'll be two little absent friends joining you guys shortly. Lay out the welcome mat and take care of them for me."

"With pleasure!" said Garrett.

Ryan could have sworn he heard the sound of Garrett loading a fresh magazine into a MA5B over the comms.

----

0921HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
TOP OF CANYON WALL, FOLLOWING COVENANT DROPSHIP LAST BEARING.

"Okay Garrett. That's our approximate position." Said Sergeant Ryan into his helmet comms as he pointed at a certain part of a tatty A4-size terrain map that he held in his other hand. It was the same map that Garrett had printed for him to plan the attack earlier that morning. It seemed like days ago.

The wind had picked up and kept trying to whip the paper out of his hand. Ryan folded the map carelessly and stuffed into the right thigh pocket of his combat trousers. "We'll stay on the Covenant dropship's last heading for now and we'll be watching out for you later this afternoon."

Ryan paused whilst he listened to Garrett over the comms. He then looked down and sighed. "Okay. I'll tell Stocks. Ryan out."

----

Corporal Stocks sat about twenty feet away from the edge of the canyon, his sniper rifle lay disassembled on the ground before him as he carefully cleaned out the barrel.

The scientist Zoran sat nearby, facing the opposite direction, talking into what appeared to be a small dictaphone.

Both men ignored each other.

Stocks looked up to see Ryan approach. "How's O'Shea and the others' doing?" he said as he quickly reassembled the rifle.

"Not bad." Ryan replied. "They've replaced the wheel assembly on the Warthog we left behind, and they took care of the Grunts as well."

"What about Murray?" Stocks asked, his voice tinged with concern.

Ryan took a step closer, leaned over and put a hand on Stock's shoulder. "I'm sorry John. He didn't make it."

"What?" Stocks yelled in anger and bewilderment as he hit the ground with his fist. Zoran visibly flinched in surprise as he heard Stocks' raised voice. "Those Covenant bastards!" Stocks added, his voice in rage.

"Relax John." Ryan said, trying to calm Stocks down, "Murray had complications - from the plasma discharge. Internal bleeding or something. He arrested, and O'Shea had to use the defibrillator from the medikit. But they couldn't get him back..."

"I'm tired of all this shit now." Stocks said, now in a subdued tone. "Let's get the hell out of here."

----

1358HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
AT CLEARING, CLOSE TO UNKNOWN DOORWAY.

"Do you think we should just walk up and knock?" said Stocks sarcastically as he, Ryan and Zoran lay on the ground amid large boulders and thick bushes that covered the ground on the edge of a clearing. About three hundred metres from their position there appeared to be a door set into the side of the mountain.

The aperture of the door was approximately three and a half metres wide by three metres high by their reckoning, and had a strange colour - a mixture of slate-grey and metallic blue. From their position, they could not see any control panel for the operation of the door. A large symbol had been intricately carved into the rock face to the right of the door, roughly one metre square, showing what appeared to be a stylised form of an obelisk. The carving appeared to slowly pulse with a red colour every few seconds.

"Nobody's home." said Stocks peering through his sniper rifles' scope at the strange portal.

"My gut instinct tells me that this could be a trap." Ryan replied.

"We've been here half an hour and seen nothing, only a couple of small foraging animals and that coloured wall-carving near the door - this place is dead." Stocks said dismissively.

"Okay." Ryan said quietly, "I'll go and take a look. You stay here with Zoran and cover me."

With that Ryan carefully crept off into the bushes, using the cover they provided until he could get close enough to sprint the shortest distance to reach the cover of the door, which was set into the mountainside some three or four metres.

"Alright Zoran," hissed Stocks, "Stay put. Don't move. Don't touch anything and don't fucking say a word. I need to concentrate in case this all turns to shit.
Understand?"

Zoran was about to complain when Stocks motioned to him to remain quiet. He had heard something - someone approaching from behind.

Stocks remained rigid, straining to hear. A biped. Something big and heavy. Something crunching on the dried leaves and twigs on the ground.

Stocks didn't have room to manoeuvre his sniper rifle around - besides, at this close range he would have to be pretty desperate to engage anyone with his S2 AM, which would risk damage to the weapon in a hand-to-hand fight.

Still laid in the prone position, Stocks reached inside his jacket and slowly began to pull out his handgun.

Looking across at Zoran, Stocks saw an empty space where the scientist had previously been laying.

Realising that the scientist had bugged out, Stocks was about to utter some words of contempt when he felt something like the end of a weapon press hard against the back of his head.

"Wort! Wort!" roared a deep voice from behind him.


-----------

Marooned Chapter 11
Date: 3 January 2004, 7:58 PM

MAROONED - CHAPTER 11
---------------------

1402HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
AT CLEARING, CLOSE TO UNKNOWN DOORWAY.

Time appeared to slow down for Corporal Stocks. He lay on his stomach, in the prone position, his sniper rifle laying useless before him.

Sweat ran freely down the side of Stocks' face. His heart was beating so hard and fast that it felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. To him, the sound of his blood pumping was almost deafening.

Stocks clutched the 'fully-automatic' M6D pistol in his right hand, and disengaged the safety as quietly as possible. His hand was shaking.

Once more Stocks felt the pressure of the weapon on the back of his head as the voice behind him again taunted "Wort! Wort!"

He closed his eyes and mouthed a silent prayer, a miracle in itself for a confirmed Atheist Stocks thought as he waited for the pressure of the weapon to lessen slightly.

Do or Die time, Stocks thought before he began to move. He just hoped that the thing stood over him had crap reflexes.

In an instant Stocks rolled over to his right, swinging his left arm with all his might to knock the aim of the enemy's weapon off. As he rolled onto his back, Stocks brought his right arm about, his pistol held outstretched. Stocks screamed in a mixture of fear and rage which somehow sounded to him slow and distorted as he squeezed and held the pistol's trigger hard.

The M6D burst into life and fired a 12.7mm a semi-armor-piercing, high explosive round skyward, whilst the slide of the recoil-operated pistol slid back to eject the empty bullet casing from the chamber. The slide then returned forwards pushing a new round out of the magazine and into the chamber. The weapon fired again.

The process repeated another five times in under two seconds as Stocks continued his unearthly scream.

Strangely there was no splatter of purple blood across Stocks' face. Neither was there any dead weight of an eight-foot tall armor-clad Elite warrior about to collapse upon him.

As the red mist of his rage disapated, Stocks became aware of a figure crouching slightly to the side of him, with both of its' hands holding it's head protectively.

"You fucking Moron!" said the deep voice, which now appeared to have a New-Zealander accent. "You could have killed me!"

The man slowly backed off from Stocks.

Stocks leapt to his feet, enraged. "Yeah? I thought I was already dead!" He charged at the man, who now stood up to his full height of six foot, nine inches. He must have weighed at least 25 stone.

Stocks put his full weight, a modest 14 stone by comparison, into his charge and knocked the man clear off of his feet and onto the ground.

Had the man been expecting that move, Stocks would have been taking the man's place instead and probably eating dirt by now.

The man shuffled backwards akwardly on the ground as Corporal Stocks strode forwards, wide-eyed in a cold rage, the colour drained from his face. Stocks thrust the barrel of his pistol into the man's face. "You made a BIG FUCKING MISTAKE pulling that move on me private! Mock executions are a Court Martialing offense! Maybe I should save you the humiliation of it by shooting you now?"

Stocks continued to train the pistol at the man whilst his eyes surveyed him as if he expected a counter move.

Stocks comms system activated.

"John? What the fuck's going on up there? Who's firing?" Ryan questioned.

"It's Sheep!" replied Stocks as he continued to hold the man refered to as 'Sheep' at gun point.

"Sheep?" Ryan repeated quizically. "What's 'Sheep' got to do with it?"

"I was about to ask him myself" Stocks answered.

"Oh, I see." Ryan replied, making the mental connection. "I'll be with you in a minute."

"Okay, and if you see Zoran on your travels," Stocks said coldly, "drag his yellow arse back over with you. Thanks."

----

1409HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
AT CLEARING, CLOSE TO UNKNOWN DOORWAY.

"Okay 'Sheep' What's going on and where is Sergeant Guerra?" Ryan demanded. He stood infront of the blonde haired giant, who sat cross-legged on the ground.

Corporal Stocks still had his pistol trained on the man.

"That's Private Tom Collins to you... Sir." Sheep replied. "I mean there's no need for this. We're on the same side for crying out loud!"

Tom Collins was another member of Sergeant Guerra's team. He was a New Zealander by descent, and had all of the obvious nicknames like Kiwi or, the more derogatory 'Sheep' and it's variants. This was in reference to the farming industry that New Zealand was known for, and the antics of the lonely male sheep farmers who outnumbered the female populations quite significantly.

Ryan took a step closer, and leaned over Collins, grabbing him by his lapels. "I don't know what kind of team Sergeant Guerra runs," Ryan said angrily, "But the moment you pulled that stunt on one of MY MEN, you just made yourself an enemy in my book!" He let go of Collins lapels in disgust.

"I'll ask you again, What is going on here, and where is Sergeant Guerra?" Ryan demanded, his voice still raised in anger.

"Inside the mountain." Collins replied, motioning towards the door set into the mountainside. "He and Private Johnson, together with the two scientists we were assigned to protect. We sent Corporal Coultas back to the Albatross because we couldn't raise them or the Sheffield on the comms."

"Coultas didn't make it." Ryan replied, dangling the dead man's tags before Collins. "We found him just short of the LZ - his warthog took a fuel rod blast."

"Oh shit!" said Collins as he hung his head and ran both hands through his regulation short blonde hair. "So what about the Albatross? When do we get extracted?"

"The Covenant downed her." Ryan said in reply, "We had a close encounter with one of their dropships, and had to bust some heads before following it back this way."

"Where's your team?" Collins asked.

"We had one fatality, and a transport problem, which is now resolved." said Ryan glancing back at the strange doorway set into the mountainside. "The rest of my team should be arriving shortly."

Corporal Stocks finally lowered his pistol, removing the partially spent magazine, and replacing it with a fresh one. He tucked the magazine that had just removed from the pistol into his right thigh pocket. He would refill the magazine at a later time.

"Alright, so how come Guerra and you guys found this place?" Ryan asked, more calmly this time.

----

Marooned Chapter 12
Date: 9 January 2004, 10:20 PM

MAROONED CHAPTER 12
-------------------

1425HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
AT SMALLER CLEARING, NEAR TO UNKNOWN DOORWAY.

"Look I'm only a Private, I don't know technical stuff, but I can tell you what I know." said Collins, sitting on the ground in a small clearing that was roughly ten feet in diameter. It was ringed by the same thick bushes that surrounded the larger clearing that lay nearby.

Collins reached for his water bottle, and began to unscrew the cap.

Seargent Ryan sat a couple of feet away. He had ordered them to move away from the larger clearing as it left them vulnerable, should the Covenant decide to swarm out of the large metallic doorway that was set into the side of the mountain.

Ryan held the Covenant Needler that Collins had used on Stocks. Apart from the other two recovered at the dropship LZ, this was the only functioning Needler that he had ever been able to examine in any detail.

Hefting the weapon in his right hand, it felt deceptively light to Ryan despite its' bulkiness, reminding him of a cheap plastic toy ray-gun - the sort that a five year old would break within minutes.

Plastic ray gun or not, Ryan recalled the desparate situations where he was dodging the purple-pink self-guiding shards. He had the micro-shrapnel scars to show where he hadn't been so lucky in avoiding the things. How did those bastards get these things to track their targets like that? he thought before placing the weapon on the ground next to him.

Corporal Stocks lay prone in the bushes a few feet away from Ryan, Zoran and Collins, his S2 AM rifle pointed towards the strange portal. His helmet now had several shoots of vegetation pushed into the meshing that covered it. It's no subsitutute for a ghillie suit, thought Stocks, but it was better than nothing.

Collins took a swig out of his water bottle and wiping his mouth, he continued. "Erm, It was approximately 1245HRS yesterday. We were about ten miles south of here, together with the scientists Armstrong and Muller. They were doing some drilling for core samples of the local rocks and soils. I couldn't tell you anymore, afterall that's scientist shit."

"I can understand you there." said Ryan dryly, slowly nodding at the same time.

"Anyway, Armstrong comes over to me and says that there's a problem with the drilling equipment, that they've hit something down there that's really hard. So I say what's that got to do with me?" said Collins before taking another mouthfull of water from his bottle.

"Then what?" asked Ryan, leaning forwards slightly.

"Armstrong asks me to relay a message through the Albatross back up to the Sheffield. Something to do with them using the DIR on their next orbital pass over our position."

"What's a DIR?" asked Zoran, intrigued.

"Deep Imaging Radar," replied Ryan. Turning to face the scientist, adding, "I'm surprised you didn't know that one."

"I haven't had the benefit of working from a military vessel before." said Zoran defensively, "But as I am in the dark with this one - so to speak - you may as well enlighten me on this."

Ryan sighed loudy, rolling his eyes. Collins caught Ryans' gaze and smirked.

"The DIR, or Deep Imaging Radar - as it is otherwise known - is a vastly improved derivative of the radar systems used on the old robot probes sent out to map the surface of various planets before we had slipspace capability." Ryan began. "The DIR not only determines the surface topography, but by analysing the radar returns we can indentify certain materials or structures deep underground. We use the system mainly to locate hardened underground facilities so we can either send in an infiltration squad or to bombard it from orbit."

"Sweet." said Collins, nodding his head.

"How deep can it reach?" asked Zoran. The scientists' interest was now aroused and he sat attentive to Ryan's discourse.

"That's classified information," said Ryan assertively, "All you need to know is that the DIR goes DEEP."

"So how is it that Dr Armstrong knows about the DIR's capabilities? I should have the same access to such information." whined Zoran.

Ryan sighed again. Nothing more than spoilt children are these scientists, always arguing and bitching behind each others backs he thought as he replied to Zoran, "Didn't you know that Dr Armstrong used to be in the service? He got injured during a campaign and got decorated with the Purple Heart. He had to leave active duty, but the UNSC kept him on in desk job somewhere as a consultant to their research division. He probably invented the thing!"

Turning back to face Collins, Ryan added, "Ok Private, then what happened?"

"The Sheffield gets the message up there and twenty minutes later they do the radar sweep."

"So what did they find?" interrupted Zoran, "Anything interesting?"

"You could say so." replied Collins, "The Albatross relayed a signal from boffins back onboard the Sheffield saying that the object that the scientists hit when they were drilling was like a needle. Erm, Armstrong called it an obelisk. Yeah that's right, an obelisk. In fact they found more of them, buried underground as they flew over the site. "

"What is their purpose?" Zoran asked inquisitively.

"They didn't know, and we still don't know either. But they told us that the radar returns showed what looked to be some kind of underground facility about ten miles from where Armstrong had been drilling." said Collins.

"Okay, so you came here to investigate." said Ryan, stating the obvious, "So how come Guerra split you guys up?"

"We tryed to contact the Albatross to relay to the Sheffield that we were going to investigate this underground complex, but they we couldn't raise the dropship on the radio." COllins replied. "So Guerra sent Coultas back in one of the Warthogs, whilst he, Johnson and the scientists went inside. He left me to watch, and I haven't seen them since yesterday afternoon."

"So the Sheffield finds these objects underground, and shortly afterwards you loose contact with the Albratross..." said Ryan loosening the strap on his helmet. "I don't know what sort of radar signature the DIR gives off, but maybe the Covenant detected the signal... or maybe our comms chatter and that's what lead them to the Albatross? I don't know."

Ryan paused and thought for a second. Activating his helmet comms he spoke. "O'Shea? Do you copy?"

The now all-too-familiar static hiss followed.

"O'Shea here." was finally the reply.

"What's your status?" Ryan answered.

"From the last fix on your BTLT (Burst Transmission Location Transponder)" said O'Shea over the roar of two Warthog Light Reconniasance Vehicles, "we are about fifteen minutes from your location. We've had to take a BIG detour around the canyons and we got held up by a little Covenant scouting party... we sorted them out alright... I'll tell you about it when we arrive."

"Excellent." replied Ryan, "I'll give you guys the full situation update when you arrive, but one important thing you need to know; We have discovered the entrance to an underground facility. It may or may not be derelict. Approach our position quietly, we don't want to wake anyone up - not yet anyway. Ryan out."

----


1520HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
CLOSE TO ENTRANCE OF UNDERGROUND FACILITY

"Ok. Now that all of you have had change to become reaquainted with each other," said Ryan as he stood together with Corporal Stocks before the gathered people.

"You will realise that we don't have more than another twenty-four hours worth of rations. That's not good." Ryan said as he stood there, feeling slightly uneasy due to the weight of each person's stare as they closely followed his speech.

"You will also know by now that the Covenant were aware of our presence on this rock before we knew of them ourselves," Ryan continued, "The Albatross was destroyed and we don't know whether or not the Covenant have engaged the Sheffield."

Ryan ran his hand through his matted hair, and scratching the stubble that was beginning to show on his face said, "What we do know that they have at least one intact dropship. As you are no doubt aware of from our intel is that those things are capable of orbital flight. We don't know if we are sat at the entrance of the base of a whole battalion or whether it is some small, poorly manned outpost."

Ryan ceased speaking and motioned towards Corporal Stocks.

John Stocks stepped forward and spoke. "You guys know that I'm not the one for a suicide mission"

"I heard that" yelled Private Garrett over a brief roar of laughter from the others.

"Yeah, Yeah." Stocks replied, gesturing with his hands for the men to pipe down. "Ryan and I have been discussing our situation. Our plan is simple; We inflitrate this facility, assess the threat posed by the Covenant contingent here, and appropriate the use of their dropship to get off this ball of rock."

"Okay" said Garrett loudly, "So we fight our way through a bunch of Covenant, steal the dropship and find out that the Sheffield is gone or destroyed when we get into orbit. Then what?"

"In that case" said Ryan, "We'll be setting up one of man's new homeworlds earlier than we thought, and I get to sire the offspring with the woman!" Ryan laughed as he shot a wink at Karen who sat before him.

"No, seriously," Ryan added, "We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it."

"I suppose I might be able to modify some of the Covenant's comms equipment and make a hybrid system by combining our parts with theirs." said Garrett, "The fleet is in the next system to this one - it's about 1.1 light years from here. If I can adapt the Covenant's FTL (Faster-Than-Lightspeed) comms system and raise the fleet they could extract us within days. The rations situation might be a problem though."

"I have catalogued some flora and fauna that we might be able to consume." said Zoran. "If it is not to your taste the perhaps you could go sparingly on your rations."

"Yeah, and maybe not all of us will make out of this alive" said Stocks wlist grinning at Zoran, "Which means we get to eat his rations instead!"

"Enough of that!" snapped Ryan. "Everybody grab an hour's rest and a bite to eat. After that, we're going in."

Turning to face Stocks, Ryan hissed, "A word in your ear John. Now!"

----

Marooned Chapter 13
Date: 16 February 2004, 12:19 PM

MAROONED CHAPTER 13
-------------------

AUTHOR'S NOTE: After a short break, and the 'underwhelming acclaim' ;-) received after my last piece 'A Resurrection of Death', the Marooned series continues...

--------------------------------------------

1602HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, EXACT LOCATION: UNKNOWN

"Looks like we're walking from here on in, just like Guerra and his men." said Corporal Stocks as he jumped down from the passenger seat of one of the two Warthogs. His combat boots made a deep resonating 'clang' as they made contact with the floor.

Drawing his sidearm from it's holster, John Stocks disengaged the weapons' safety as he slowly walked towards Guerra's abandoned Warthog. Holding the M6D automatic pistol up close to his face, whilst closing one eye as he looked along the sight, he finally reached the all-terrain vehicle.

"Clear." Stocks announced as he lowered his weapon.

"All right." said Ryan as he climbed out of his Warthog, "Everyone one out!"

Ryan stood and surveyed his surroundings.

The hall that they were in was roughly fifty metres long, and approximately eight or ten metres high - he could'nt tell for sure due to the dim lighting emitted from several small lights that were equally spaced along the centreline of the hall's ceiling. The ceiling formed and upside down 'V' shape, giving the hall the shape of a long triangular prism.

The walls/ceiling that tapered away from the lights above them, looked like they were composed of precision machined metal slabs, each slab containing strange symmetrical inscriptions. Certain sections of the wall were backlit by a deep red glow which pulsed at the same rate as the icons that were cut out of the rock face on the surface marking the entrance to the facility.

The floor was similar to the tapered walls of the room, again consisting of huge metal slabs, measuring approximately a metre and a half across each slabs' diagonal.

"They must have had one hell of an interior designer!" said Private Garrett, who had squat down on the floor, and was running his fingers over the inscriptions cut into the metal slabs. He was obviously intrigued by the quality of the workmanship, "These inscriptions - It looks almost like it was acid etched or something."

"Impossible." snapped Zoran, "The level of detail is too great, and the workmanship is too precise. I would say that each piece was precision machined, or maybe laser cut."

"Yeah, whatever." Garrett replied as he stood up again.

"What a tailpipe!" O'Shea whispered towards Garrett.

"I heard that!" laughed Garrett in reply.

"You guys gonna' let me in on the joke?" asked Ryan as he walked towards the sniggering pair that was Garrett and O'Shea.

"I think you're already aquainted," laughed O'Shea, "It's stood wearing a white lab-coat over there."

"Oh, I see." said Ryan, "Any success in contacting Guerra?"

"Nothing." replied Garrett, "Not even static. Something in here is suppressing the radio signals. A fibre-optic cable would probably be the only way to run a signal in here."

"Shit." Ryan said, whilst wiping his face with his hands, "So you're saying that we don't even have comms ability between us?"

"Afraid so, sir" Garrett replied.

"Okay then. We'll have to rely on hand signals then. But if you can get a signal let me know. Keep your eyes open then." Ryan answered.

Shouldering his MA5B Assault Rifle, Ryan added, "Use your Infra-Red, those stealth-camo Elites could be in here with us!".

Walking over to Stocks, Ryan spoke. "What's up John?"

Stocks continued to stare towards the triangular door set into the end of the hall.

"John?" Ryan repeated.

"Sorry. Ryan," Stocks replied, "I just got a bad feeling that's all. It's gonna get nasty in there and not all of us are gonna get out alive."

"Hey, let's take it one step at a time," Ryan replied as he gave Stocks a hefty slap on the back, "and make sure we all watch each other backs and we'll be okay."


1625HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, EXACT LOCATION: UNKNOWN

"Alright people!" Ryan announced, "As we're not coming back this way, we should load up with all of the equipment we can. Zoran, Karen, stay close - things could get hairy in there!"

Minutes later the group left their two Warthogs behind, and passing the abandoned Warthog of Guerra, they approached a triangular door at the end of the hall.

"Okay! Abandon all hope all ye who enter here!" said Stocks forcing a smile as he stepped forwards as the triangular door silently slid open.

John Stocks stepped into a small, narrow corridor that sloped away infront of him. A series of lights set into the ceiling blinked in the electrical equivelant of a 'Mexican-Wave' into the distance. The walls formed a typical rectangular cross-section to the corridor, lined with plain blue-grey walls.

The end of the corridor lay roughly about 30 metres away with no obvious exits visible.

"I can't see any doors!" Stocks exclaimed.

"It can't be a dead end." Ryan replied, "If it was, we'd have seen some evidence of Guerra's team."

"What? Like bodies?" Stocks replied in a dead-pan voice.

"Not funny." Ryan replied. "Maybe it's a T-Junction or a ninety-degree turn at the end, but we can't see from here?"

Ryan and Stocks slowly walked forwards, side by side, Stocks peering into the scope of his sniper rifle whilst Ryan shouldered his assault rifle.

Zoran, Karen, and Private Collins followed, with Private O'Shea and Garrett bringing up the rear.

Approaching the end of the corridor's straight, Ryan realised that there was a turn ahead.

Creeping up to the corner, Ryan slung his rifle over his right shoulder, and fished out of a pocket on his jacket a small angled mirror on the end of a stick that bore a striking resemblance to an old-style dentist's inspection mirror.

"You still got that old thing?" Stocks asked as Ryan slowly moved the mirror towards the corner. "You see anything?"

"Hang on a sec..." Ryan replied as he adjusted the angle of the mirror. "Nope. All clear."

Folding the mirror back on its' hinge against the thin shaft of the handle, Ryan stuffed the simple device back inside his jacket.

Turning back to face Stocks, and the rest of the group that stood waiting silently, Ryan spoke. "All clear ahead. So far. The corridor goes level from here and leads to what looks like a large room at the end."

The team continued onwards towards the room at the end of the corridor.

As they approached the end of the corridor, Ryan motioned the group to halt, whilst he and Stocks continued onwards, entering the room.

Several large cubeoid objects lay scattered before them in a random placement. Beyond them were more of these crate-like objects stacked in varying heights. The room was obviously some kind of a storage area. The room's ceiling was not visible, but four shafts of light beamed down to illuminate the floor of the room.

"Two Elites on Infra-Red." Whispered Ryan, "Non-stealth flavour. Standard two man patrol pattern around the pile of containers in the room's centre." Turning to face Corporal Stocks, Ryan added "Exits?"

"I see two exits..." said Stocks, as his face glowed a pale green in the light of his sniper rifle scope. "...on this level, and two above on the walkway."

"Tangos?" Asked Ryan.

"Apart from the two Elites you marked? Hang on a sec..." Stocks replied, as he studied the room through the green screen of the rifles' night vision scope. "I make out two blue wrist shield Jackals at the far exit, nothing at the exit to the left..."

Aiming his rifle aloft, Stocks continued to sweep the room. "The walkway runs from one doorway on the left wall and across the wall on far end of the room and back on the right wall towards the second exit up on the walkway..."

"Covenant?" Ryan whispered.

"Six Grunts," Stocks began, "two on the walkway by the first door, two by the second exit, and two on the far wall."

"How the hell did Guerra get past these guys?" Ryan said quietly as he looked around the room. "which exit did he take?"

"Damned if I know," Whispered Stocks, "I reckon that they must have beefed up their presence here as I make out a big patch of Covie blood by the left exit... and, errr... Careful! We've got empty shotgun shells here. Looks like someone saw some action!"

Shifting his weight onto his left leg as he crouched on the floor his left hand touched something wet. "Urgh. What's this?" Ryan asked.

"Looks like blood!" Stocks replied, peering closer at the dark substance on Ryan's hand now raised hand. "Definately human." he added as Ryan wiped his hand on left leg of his combat trousers.

"They took some heat alright!" Ryan answered, now noticing the pock-marked wall behind them where it had taken a barrage of plasma fire.

"Can you see where the trail of blood goes?" Stocks hissed as he again watched the enemy.

"Hang on... Looks like it's towards the left exit." said Ryan beckoning toward the doorway, "I can't see if it goes all the way though, it's too dark and it's there's no trail showing on Infra-Red."

"Must have been some time ago then, if they've had chance to remove the body." said Stocks, "But not that long of course as the blood is still wet."

Lowering his rifle, Stocks turned to Face Ryan, who was crouched beside him. "Now what? I don't think we can sneak by this lot. There's too many of them, plus they have an aerial advantage. Who do we take out first?"

"Maybe the Elites," Ryan answered, "They're the ones with the real tactical ability, but maybe a diversion would be better..."

"What are you thinking of?" Stocks asked.

Ryan grinned as he produced three Covenant plasma grenades from a small kit bag attached to his belt. "Let's see how my aim has improved since I gave up playing cricket..."

Turning around whilst still crouched, Ryan signalled to O'Shea that they were about engage the enemy.

Waiting until the moment that both Elites were facing away from their position Ryan primed and threw the plasma grenades.

The first grenade tagged a Grunt that had been stood stationary on the Walkway at the far end of the room. As the grenade hit, it yelped in alarm and changed towards the other Grunt. The resulting detonation took out both Covenant, their small bodies propelled over the walkway and down to the crates below.

The second grenade hit one of the the Elites on it's left leg as they both charged towards the back wall of the room to investigate the demise of the two unfortunate Grunts, whilst the third grenade fell short of the second Elite.

The sight of the first Elite frantically trying to shake off the plasma grenade whilst crying out in anguish in a bizarre, almost cossack-style dance would have been hilarious if Stocks hadn't been aiming for the second Elite's skull.

The grenade detonated, blowing the Elite's leg clear off, whilst it was bodily thrown like a rag doll into a stack of containers, three tiers high which promptly collapsed ontop of the body.

The second Elite's armour flared angrily in a bright yellow hue as it dived for cover as the blast took it's shield's charge out.

As the third grenade exploded harmlessly out of range of any Covenant, the room became alive with the blind firing of the Covenant who couldn't locate the position of their attackers.

Stocks tore his eyes away from the light-amplifying screen of his rifles' scope as the third grenade exploded. He had lost his aim when the second Elite had dived for cover, and lost the target altogether when the third grenade had detonated.

Scanning the room for the Elite, Stocks finally spotted it crouching behind a crate, waiting for it's shield's to recharge. He promptly dispatched the Elite to it's maker, courtesy of a well placed head-shot.

Ryan stood up to have a better aim. A three round burst took off the arm of a Needler wielding Grunt on the left walkway, but it was too late. A stream of pink-purple shards snaked towards his position as the two Jackals at the end of the room trained their fire on Ryan's positon.

He ducked behind the crates just in time as the Needler shards ricocheted above him with the weird sound of a rubber-soled training shoe, skidding on a wooden gym floor.

"We're pinned down here!" Ryan yelled as Stocks, who was trying to get a shot in between bursts of Covenant plasma fire.

"No shit!" Stocks replied, "How many left?"

Ryan peered over the top of the crate that provided their forward cover between the incoming fire, noticing that the two Jackals had now split up and were moving towards them down separate sides of the room.

"One on the left walkway, two on the right, and the bastard Jackals are trying to flank us!" Ryan shouted, and turning around, he was greeted by O'Shea and Garrett charging into the room, both screaming at the top of their lungs, their MA5B Assault rifles on full automatic fire.

On full auto, the kickback of the MA5B has considerably reduced accuracy over medium to long range distances, but certainly gets the enemy's attention.

In a hail of 7.62mm death, the last Grunt on the left walkway tumbled backwards, the glowing bright blue grenade that it was about to throw, setting off a chain reaction of explosions as other grenades dropped by already-dead-Needler-wielding-Grunt exploded.

The Jackals swung their attention towards their two new enemies, crouching behind their shields whilst rapid firing two streams of green plasma from their pistols.

O'Shea yanked the Yank behind a nearby crate just in time.

"Thanks Sean, that was close!" said Garrett gratefully as both men took refuge behind the crate infront of them which hissed and bubbled with each plasma bolt it received.

"You owe me one now!" smiled O'Shea as he reloaded his assault rifle, "but I'd settle for a pint of Guiness when we're off-duty. I can't drink that weak stuff that you Americans call beer!"

"Weak beer?" Garrett laughed, "Hey, at least I don't have to wait about ten minutes for the barman to pour your stuff. I'd be on my third one by the time you get yours! Beer is Beer, man."

"Alright. If you say so." O'Shea replied as he fired a quick burst around the corner of the crate.

Garrett and O'Shea's diversion was enough for Stocks to take out another Grunt on the upper right walkway. It would have two with one shot if it wasn't for the other Grunt stumbling over at the last moment.

Seizing the opportunity, Ryan darted towards the cover of another crate in the confusion, taking out the last Grunt on the overhead walkway whilst onroute.

Pausing to reload the MA5B behind his new cover, Ryan peered around the crate
and spied the two remaining Covenant Jackals who had Garrett and O'Shea pinned down.

Taking on of his M9 HE-DP fragmentation grenades, Ryan pulled the pin and cast it along the floor with an under-arm throw.

The grenade finally came to rest between the two Jackals who simulatenously squaked in alarm as they noticed the weapon moments before the explosion splattered their remains on the inside of their wrist shields.

Seconds later, as the dust settled, Ryan yelled. "Everyone okay?"

Stocks, Garrett and O'Shea all emerged from their separate cover positions.

Surprisingly no one was hurt.

"Grab whatever useful weapons you can carry, and let's go!" said Ryan, with a sense of urgency in his voice. "Stocks, check out the left exit. Garrett and O'Shea, cover the entrance we came in through whilst I'll watch the far exit. Signal Collins to move up with Karen and Zoran."

After policing the dead Covenants weapons, the men moved to cover their designated target positions, whilst Zoran moved towards the left exit followed by Karen and Collins bringing up the rear.

"Contact!" Ryan yelled as four Grunts ran into the room from the far doorway, their plasma pistols held ready.

Firing a three round burst from his assault rifle, Ryan took one of the Grunts out, whilst the one stood immediately next to his fallen comrade launched a bright blue orb into the air.

Weapons fire from Garrett and O'Shea took out two of the other Grunts, whilst the grenade-tossing Grunt span on it's heels and attempted to make a run for it's life.

"Grenade!" roared Collins as he watched the blue fizzing ball arc towards them and land before Zoran.

Instead of diving for cover, the scientist charged towards the grenade, swinging his leg as if he was taking a free kick.

"Zoran! NO!" Ryan yelled as the scientist's shoe made contact with the grenade.

Zoran screamed a horrible peculiar scream as he realised the greande had not been kicked away but was, infact, stuck to his shoe.

The resulting explosion showered a red mist of blood over Collins and Karen who had dived for cover nearby.

"Fucking Idiot" Ryan said to Stocks as both men jogged over to COllins and Karen who lay a short distance away from the scientist's remains.

"Yeah, even if he hadn't read the intel on Covie grenades," Stocks replied, "for someone who was supposed to be a bloody genius, that was really fucking stupid!"

"You guys okay? No injuries?" Ryan asked when he arrived at the pair laying in a sea of blood and body parts.

"Yeah, I-I just need to get cleaned up." said Collins trying not to retch at the sight of the remains, whilst getting to his feet.

Karen was sobbing uncontrollably, her face was covered with Zoran's blood. She now sat cross legged sobbing whilst looking backwards and forwards in turn at both of her bloody hands.

As Ryan helped Karen to her feet, she grabbed hold of him and sobbed into his chest.

"John, what about the last Grunt?" Ryan asked turning to face the Corporal.

"Got away in the confusion, even though it took a round through one of it's legs!" Stocks replied.

"They'll be back with more." Ryan said coldly, "We've gotta put in some distance between them and us."

----------

Marooned - Chapter 14
Date: 22 April 2004, 10:10 AM

MAROONED, CHAPTER 14
--------------------

1725HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, EXACT LOCATION: UNKNOWN

The muzzle flash of the MA5B assault rifle gave a weird strobe-light effect in the dim light of the corridor. Orange sparks added to the light show where the 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds ricocheted off the grey-blue paneled walls.

The weapons fire in the confines of the corridor resonated deeply, the impacts of the rounds thrummed like an intense hailstorm raining down on dozens of empty 205 litre oil drums. Those metallic sounds were punctuated by the high-pitched electric hiss of several sporadic streams of returning green plasma fire and cyan-blue plasma grenades detonating in a chain reaction.

Sergeant Ryan fired again as he slowly advanced along the hexagonal cross-sectioned corridor, stepping over the fallen bodies of Covenant Grunts - his face briefly lit up by the yellow flash as his Assault Rifle ejected another three round burst from the muzzle of the weapon. His bare arms, shoulders and body armour were liberally splattered with Covenant blood.

Private Travis Garrett accompanied Ryan, his MA5B firing likewise.

Another Grunt fell under the fusillade of fire.

"Woo Hoo!" grinned Garrett, as he briefly glanced sideways at Ryan, "It's like shooting fish in a barrel!"

An injured Grunt lay on the ground before Garrett. In a last desperate effort, it reached out with it's claw, attempting to grasp its' weapon that lay almost within reach -

"I don't fucking think so!" Garrett said sternly as he brought the butt of his rifle down on the small alien's cranium. The heavy weapons' blunt end collapsed the Grunt's skull forcing cyan-blue blood out of it's eye sockets, together with it's now sightless eyes.

"You're a mean bastard when you want to be!" Ryan remarked as he snapped his gaze away from the bludgeoned Grunts and scanned the corridor ahead. He wiped the mixture of sweat and alien blood off his face with the back of his hand. His eyes flicked down at the digital readout of his MA5B for a split second. Another magazine almost used.

"Watch your ammo!" yelled Ryan as he stepped over another Grunt carcass as he approached what appeared to be a T-junction in the corridor ahead, "We're not out of here yet!"

"Ok Sarge," Garrett replied as he rounded the corner to his left ahead of Ryan and let out another ten or twelve round burst which tore through the two Grunts which were laying in wait for them in the alcove.

"Nice work." Ryan commended as he slapped Garrett on the back. He paused briefly to watch the two small aliens' bodies twitch spazmodically in a sea of cyan blood.

The wall above the men hissed and bubbled as several streams of plasma fire impacted.

"Shit!" Garrett exclaimed as he pulled Ryan back into the cover of their corridor, "Maroon Elite, in the corridor to the right!"

"Crap!" Ryan muttered - not because it was an Elite, but more out of the fact that he hadn't been careful enough. If Garrett hadn't of reacted so quickly, he might have been injured or dead.

Ryan quickly flicked out his inspection mirror and used it to see around the corner to confirm Garrett's statement. "Yeah. It's using that crate as cover. Bastard! This is going to be tricky!"

"Problems?" yelled John Stocks from behind.

"Yeah," Ryan replied turning to face the Corporal. He winced as Garrett fired his MA5B. The acoustics of the corridor amplified the weapons noise. "We've got a maroon Elite holed up behind a crate ahead. Any ideas?"

"Maybe." said Stocks as he tossed a Covenant plasma pistol at Ryan.

Ryan caught the weapon and shot a puzzled look back at Stocks moments before Private Garrett barged into him as he retreated from a volley of plasma fire.

"Quit fucking about, man!" Ryan snapped.

"Sorry Ryan." Garrett replied, "That bastard's aim is improving. Whatever you've planned you better do it quick!"

Ryan looked at Stocks, "Ok, so what do I do?"

"You know how to overcharge those things?" Stocks replied as he ejected the magazine from his M6D pistol.

"Uh-Huh." Ryan nodded.

"Good." Stocks said as he loaded a fresh magazine, and cocked the pistols' slide mechanism. "Immediately after Garrett's next burst, roll out and hit the bastard with an overcharged shot. Leave the rest to me."

"What?!?! You've gotta be joking right?" Ryan replied.

"No!" shouted Stocks over the sound of Garrett who was rapidly emptying another magazine in the general direction of the Elite.

Garrett fired the last rounds in his assault rifles' magazine. "You're up!" he yelled as he ducked back into the corridor.

I'm gonna regret this! thought Ryan as he rolled out into the open.

The Elite locked it's gaze onto the new target - which due to the green glow of the overcharged pistol - had immediately attracted its' attention. It raised its' weapon and roared a challenge as Ryan let fly the overcharged plasma.

In what seemed like an eternity, the green plasma snaked through the air towards the Elite, just as it was raising it's plasma rifle.

In a fluid moment, John Stocks stepped out into the corridor as the green plasma splashed over the Elite. He held the M6D steady as he let off two shots in quick succession which ripped through the Elite's helmet and skull. The creature was dead before it's body hit the floor.

"Friggin A!" cheered Garrett.

Ryan lept up from the floor. "It's the last time I take your advice! If this piece of alien shit had misfired, or that bastard had been less vain, I'd be dead now!" shouted Ryan, again wiping the sweat away from his forehed with the back of his left hand. "Where did you get the idea for that?" he said as he cast the plasma pistol onto the floor before he unslung his assault rifle.

"O'Shea told me." Stocks replied, "You can ask him where he saw it."

"Who mentioned me?" Private Sean O'Shea asked as he walked up with his M90 Shotgun held aloft, resting on his right shoulder. His face was streaked with blue and purple blood. Ryan did a double take on O'Shea. Either he was imaginging things or had O'shea smeared the blood on his face into something in the style of tribal war-paint?

O'shea was accompanied by Private Tom Collins and Karen Moore.

"Nice idea with the overcharged shot, Sean." said Ryan, now scruntinising the private's new facial appearance more closely. "What's with the war-paint, been collecting scalps?"

"Oh, er yeah, in a manner of speaking" said O'Shea, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. He normally didn't like to draw that much attention to himself when other people were around. "I must have gotten carried away."

"Just a bit!" exclaimed Collins who had now taken up a seat on one of the smaller crates littering the corridor. "When you started shouting, you scared the shit out me, let alone the Grunts that were trying to follow us!"

"So tell me where you got the idea for the plasma pistol from?" asked Ryan whilst O'Shea wiped the blood off of his face with the left sleeve of uniform.

"Remember when I said that we ran into a Covenant patrol on the way over here in the Warthog?" said O'Shea, "Well, I saw one of the Jackals accidently hit an Elite with an overcharged shot and that must have taken its' shields out in one go. We dropped it moments later with the LAAG without any of the shield flare we normally see with those guys. I guess I never got chance to tell you, but I did mention it to Stocks. I didn't know if we could pull it off though."

"As I said - Nice one!" said Ryan.

"No problem." replied O'Shea as he walked back towards Garrett, Collins and Stocks.

Karen Moore stepped forwards. The top half of her flight suit had been cut off earlier due to it being drenched with Zoran's blood. Over the top of her green T-Shirt she now sported Ryan's charcoal-grey combat shirt. Despite the fact that it was too big for her, and her hair was slightly matted, Ryan mused that she still looked good in it in a dishevelled sort of way.

"You Ok?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah." Karen purred as she slinked towards Ryan, and ran a finger down one of his toned arms. "I see you're not cold since you let me borrow your shirt."

"He should get a fucking room, and put her out of her misery." muttered Stocks under his breath to his colleagues as he stood some distance away from Ryan and Karen.

Collins, O'Shea and Garrett erupted in laughter.

The sound of a distant explosion snapped everyone back into focus on the job in hand - locating the second science team and escape from the facility.


1806HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, EXACT LOCATION: UNKNOWN

"Explosion ahead!" shouted O'Shea as he glanced behind as he and Garrett led the charge through the corridors.

"Range?" Ryan yelled in response.

"A couple of hundred metres." O'Shea replied.

Suddenly the ground beneath them shuddered as another explosion reverberated through the facility.

O'Shea, Ryan and the other emerged from the corridor onto a large walkway.

The walkway spanned what appeared to be a large underground chasm. The chasm ran ninety degrees across their path, the wall on their side and on the opposite side extended off to their left and right into the darkness. The walls were composed of metallic panels which had the colour of grey slate, with what appeared to be more of the same precision machined indentations. Along the lines of these indentations, faint streams of red light passed to and fro in vertical patterns.

In the depths below the walkway, a red glow pulsed rapidly in a mist that obscured the floor beneath. It was impossible to determine how deep it was.

The walkway was roughly six metres wide and was made of what appeared to be a mosaic of the same tiles that decorated the walls. Apart from several short pillars that lined the edges, short walls projected halfway across the width of the platform in a regular spacing of about ten metres between each wall. The walls formed what appeared to be a continuous chicane across the length of the walkway.

Two electric blue streams of energy ran above the walkway linking the platform and both sides of the chasm - one on either side of the metallic walkway. Their appearance remainded Ryan of the cables he'd seen on single-span suspension bridges back on Earth.

At the halfway point across the chasm, the walkway intersected with a cylindrical column that was about three metres in diameter. The column rose out of the red mist below them, passed through the walkway and extended off into the gloom above them.

The party slowly traversed the walkway without incident.

As they passed the column, Ryan stopped to run his hand over the smooth surface of the metal. Private Sean O'Shea paused alongside Ryan as the rest of the party continued their crossing.

Ryan examined the surface of the column. The slate-grey metal had a series of shallow grooves cut into it. The course of the grooves ran vertically, with an occasional large radius arc to the left or to the right that joined another vertical groove. The layout of this reminded Ryan of an aerial view of the tracks that made up a railway freight yard - He'd seen such pictures in a history lesson back in school.

Turning to face Private O'Shea, Ryan asked, "What do you think it is? A support structure?"

"Er maybe not" replied O'Shea as he stopped to inspect the column. He flipped up the end of the M90 shotgun that he held so that the barrel rested against his right shoulder. His gaze followed the column up into the darkness above. He looked back down and then gave both ends of the walkway a quick glance. "The span of the walkway is what, er, about only about a hundred metres. I reckon that the overhead energy beams are the extra support." He then held the palm of his left hand against the slate grey metal. Turning to face Ryan, O'Shea asked, "You feel that?"

"What?" replied Ryan as he also pressed his hand onto the metal surface.

"A slight vibration." O'Shea answered. "Something is passing through this column. At first I thought it might be a power transfer conduit, but you wouldn't necessarily get vibration with that..."

Taking a couple of steps back from the column, O'Shea gave the structure another looking-over. "Hmmm..." he mused, "This thing could be a materials transfer conduit, or some other type of transit system - maybe a lift."

"I can't see any evidence of a doorway" said Ryan as he slowly walked around the column.

"Me neither." replied O'Shea.

Ryan was about to speak when an explosion in the depths below them caused the walkway to shudder. Ryan and O'Shea quickly moved the edge of the walkway and cautiously peered over.

Beneath them a series of smaller explosions detonated with yellow-orange flashes in the mist below.

"That's not plasma based explosions!" Ryan announced as he turned back from the edge of the walkway.

"I was just thinking that," said O'Shea, "Sounds like our stuff; M19 rockets or seismic survey
charges."

Corporal Stocks, who together with the rest of the party was at least ten metres ahead of Ryan and O'Shea yelled, "We've got company!" as several crouched figures emerged from the doorway at the opposite end of the platform. In the gloom he could make out two huge hunched over figures accompanied by four smaller crouched creatures. "Shite!" Stocks added, "We've got Hunters, two of big bastards! If that's not enough for you we have four blue-shield Jackals too!"

"Take cover people!" Ryan yelled as he and O'Shea ran to regroup with the rest of the party as the first streams of incoming plasma fire flashed past them. "That means you too!" he said as he threw Karen to the floor.

"You're quite forceful when you want to be!" she beamed at him from the floor.

"This is not the time!" Ryan said seriously as he got up and crouched behind the wall in front of them.

Private Garrett busied himself with laying down suppressing fire with his assault rifle. Whilst Corporal Stocks crouched down and unslung his sniper rifle.

"Keep the Jackals busy," Stocks hissed as he took aim, "don't left them try to advance, at least not whilst those Hunters are still a problem." Gently squeezing the trigger, Stocks let fly a single round. "Crap!" he muttered as the round deflected off the armoured shield of the lead Hunter. "This is no good," he continued, "I need to get a shot in from the side or the back."

The familiar screech of Needler rounds as they ricocheted off one of the Jackal's shields barely carried over the sound of the party's projectile weapons' fire.

Ryan turned to face Private Collins, "Stopping firing that thing! It's no use against their shields!" He yelled. "Use this instead." Ryan added, sliding his pistol along the polished metal floor towards Collins.

Collins quickly threw down the Needler and taking up the pistol, disengaged the safety and quickly despatched one of the Jackals.

"That's more like it!" Ryan said approvingly.

"Yeah!" cheered Collins as he lined another Jackal up in his sights.

"Incoming!" Stocks yelled as he crouched lower as a green bolt from the lead Hunter's fuel-rod cannon discharged, arcing over their heads. The bolt impacted just behind the walkway's column causing the platform to violenlty vibrate.

Suddenly a loud hiss eminated from the column behind them as the outline of an aperture formed in the surface of the metal.

"There was a door afterall!" O'Shea exclaimed as he saw the doorway form.

Blue plasma fire blazed through the narrow opening that slowly grew on the columns' surface facing them.

"Bastards!" Ryan screamed in disbelief as he swung round to face the column, "More Covenant! On our six! "

Marooned - Chapter 15
Date: 23 April 2004, 7:19 PM

MAROONED, CHAPTER 15
--------------------

1826HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, WALKWAY OVER CHASM

Just as I thought things couldn't get worse! Ryan thought as he grabbed Karen around her slender waist and bodily dragged her whilst in a crouch until they were out of the line of Covenant plasma fire.

When Ryan was satisfied that they were out of immediate danger, he released Karen and she dropped to the floor and backed herself into a corner where the wall and one of the pillars lining the edge of the walkway intersected.

The look on her face said it all - she was terrified.

Ryan quickly fastened his helmet's chin strap. He unslung his MA5B assault rifle and checked the ammo counter - fifty-two rounds remaining in the current magazine. He felt the right thigh pocket of his combat trousers, and to his relief, two spare magazines lay within. He shot Karen a grin and a wink. "Stay out of trouble!" he said as he turned to make his crouching run towards the new threat.

"Don't leave me here!" Karen pleaded, grabbing hold of Ryan's right arm, "I don't want to die!"

Ryan turned and put his left hand on the small pair of hands that had a grip on his right arm. "Karen," Ryan sighed as he slowly peeled her hands off of his arm, "you have to stay here. If you go with me you might get
injured, and I can't allow that."

"Ok." Karen replied quietly as Ryan cautiously made a start towards the column.

"Incoming!" Yelled Corporal Stocks from his refuge some ten metres or so further across the walkway.

Ryan sneeked a peek over the top of the wall next to him. Where was the green bolt of plasma from one of the Hunter's fuel rod cannon?

Ryan could see Corporal Stocks in the distance, frantically gesturing back at him. "Get dow-" the Corporal began to shout.

A terrifically loud noise washed over Ryan, together with the heat blast typical of a rocket exhaust.

What the?!?! That was close! thought Ryan, as he watched a vapour trail rapidly extend over the walkway, connecting with the lead Hunter. A familiar sounding explosion followed. The shockwave from the blast propelled the bodies of two of the Jackals off the walkway and down into the darkness as if they were rag dolls.

When the smoke cleared the lead Hunter lay lifeless on the floor, it's body an broken charred mess.

In the midst of the chaos, O'Shea had despatched one of the Jackals, courtesy of a well thrown frag grenade.

Only one Hunter and one Jackal remained.

What the Hell? thought Ryan. One minute it looks like we're surrounded by the Covies and now this! Rockets? It must be Guerra's team!

Ryan glanced back at the column, his eyes flicked over it and the floor surrounding the column. Nothing except the black scorching left by the fuel rod blast moments ago. He could not see anyone inside the doorway.

Strange... Ryan thought, and he turned back to face the Covenant on the walkway.

The Hunter shuffled sideways, holding it's fuel rod cannon aloft as the weapon's barrel began to glow a bright green colour - the tell-tale sign that they would soon have to take cover.

To Ryan, the sound of the Hunter's metallic armour clunking sounded like a metal bucket full of bolts being slowly shaken.

"Get down!" A deep gruff voice suddenly called from behind Ryan, breaking that thought.

He had barely hit the deck when another rocket blazed overhead.

The second rocket impacted on the Hunter's shield throwing the large creature backwards onto the floor, crushing the last Jackal under it's immense weight.

As the creature struggled to get to it's feet Stocks finished the Hunter with a well placed shot into the exposed orange flesh in the lumbering alien's side.

"Looks like you needed some help here." said the deep voice again.

Ryan turned to the see three figures emerge from the aperture in the column.

The lead figure was approximately five foot ten inches tall, and of a heavy build and a slight beer-belly. The man was at least fifty years old, and his dark hair was cut in a short crew-cut, with streaks of grey around his temples. He wore light grey combat fatigues, complete with a holstered M6D pistol, and he wore a light grey tunic that was adorned with spatterings of human and Covenant blood. Over his back was slung an MA5B assault rifle and he carried a Covenant Plasma Rifle in his left hand.

Following him was a large soldier slightly bigger than Private Tom Collins. The soldier was dark skinned, his head was clean shaven. He wore a dirty, blood stained grey vest that looked like it had taken a Needler round through it near the left shoulder. His dark grey combat trousers were covered in blue Covenant blood. It looked as if the man had been up to his knees in the stuff. A large canvas bag was slung over his back, an together with an M90 shotgun, and he shouldered a freshly fired M19 SSM rocket launcher - smoke still rising from one of its' launch tubes.

The last figure was a tall thin man - pale skinned with long silvery hair slicked backwards. He wore a blood stained lab coat and carried a large aluminium brief case in his left hand, and a Covenant plasma rifle in the other hand.

"Sergeant Ryan", the lead man grinned as he extended his right hand, "Good to see you again son." he said as he shook Ryan's hand vigorously.

"Dr Armstrong." Ryan laughed, "Thanks for the help. We had the situation under control until you guys showed up!"

"I'm sure you did." replied Armstrong with a twinkle in his eyes, "I see that you've got Private Collins with you. Where's Corporal Coultas?"

"He didn't make it back to the LZ." Ryan answered solemnly as he fished Corporal Coultas dog tags out from inside his dark grey vest as showed them to Dr Armstrong.

"Too bad." said Armstrong shaking his head slowly, "He was a good man, just like Guerra."

"Guerra?" Ryan asked hopefully.

"Got hit pretty badly. Lost a lot of blood." Armstrong replied, "Dr Muller here patched him up with biofoam as best that he could, but the medikit didn't have enough blood volume expander in it. Damn Covenant bastards!"

"Where is he?" Ryan said, as he put Coultas' tags back inside his vest.

"Down in the control room." Armstrong replied, pointing back at the column as another explosion shook the walkway. "No time to talk now - We need to get out of here, and fast!" he added.


1852HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, EXACT LOCATION UNKNOWN

"Why the haste to leave? The explosions? And what about this 'control room'?" Ryan asked as the group, together with its' three new additions, moved quickly through the corridors away from the platform.

"One question at a time son," Armstrong replied slightly out of breath due to their quickened pace, "We found this place from the data produced by the Deep Imaging Radar onboard the Sheffield. This facility is immense - the imaging from DIR scans shows that it goes almost as deep as the planet's mantle."

"Wow..." Ryan answered, now noticing the extra embroidered detail located on the man's lapel under the name R.J. ARMSTRONG. "That's serious shit that we're dealing with down here!"

"Yeah, and that's not all of it," Armstrong puffed, not realising the context of Ryan's last statement. "The subterrainean obelisks we found are linked into a giant lattice, geometrically arranged across the whole planet!"

"What's their purp-" Ryan began as he slowed down, noticing a corner in the corridor ahead. He quietly slung his assault rifle on his right shoulder and slowly approached the corner whilst fishing out the inspection mirror again. Just short of the corner he turned to face the rest of the team following behind him, and signalled them to be quiet. After a brief scan with the mirror, Ryan signalled the all-clear.

"You were saying?" Armstrong asked When they were safely on their way again.

"Er, yeah." Ryan replied, "What's the story with the obelisks then?"

"We weren't sure of their purpose - they might have been some kind of crystalline antennae array."

"You mean this planet could be a Covenant listening outpost?" Ryan answered."I thought so at first." said Armstrong, "But in all the years that I've fought the Covenant as a soldier and a scientist - I've seen a lot of highly classified stuff, recovered Covenant tech - but this is..." He paused to find the right word, "Different".

His interest piqued by Armstrong's revelations, Ryan stopped and asked. "What is it then?"

"A relay station or a pulse transmitter of somekind." Armstrong replied, "Real powerful too - it draws its' power from the geothermal energy produced in the planet's mantle. As I've said already - I've seen lots of retrieved
Covenant technology in my time, and according to our readings, this stuff predates out estimates of Covenant civilisation by several dozen millenia! Besides we found the Covenant down there tinkering with the stuff trying to find out how it works."

Ryan whistled slowly in awe.

"Yeah." nodded Armstrong, "Awe inspiring isn't it? And you thought that the Covies were advanced!"

"Where do the explosions come into it?" Ryan asked as they continued onwards again.

"We had to stop the Covenant getting their hands on that technology - those bastards would probably find some way to use it against us!" Armstrong continued, "We ambushed them and rigged the control room to blow. Guerra knew he was finished, so he volunteered to stay behind and hold off any more Covenant. Besides there is something in here that suppresses radio signals so someone had to manually denotate the charges instead of remotely doing it. The explosion must have set off some kind of overload... which means we need to get out of here and fast!"

"But to where?" Ryan answered, "I don't know the layout of this place!"

"Well, looks like we're in luck!" Armstrong chuckled, as he produced a small datapad which he waved infront of Ryan's eyes. "I'll take over the navigation shall I?"

"Be my guest." Ryan replied, gesturing Dr Armstrong to take point.

"No thanks son." Armstrong laughed whilst waving his hand dismissively, "I'm getting too old for charging ahead, guns blazing. Besides, I probably still outrank you although I'm not on active duty, and I'd hate to have to make it an order."

"Whatever you say, Sir" Ryan saluted with a grin.

"As you were, Sargeant" Armstrong replied.

Marooned Chapter 16
Date: 17 May 2004, 8:37 PM

MAROONED, CHAPTER 16
--------------------

2038HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY, EXACT LOCATION UNKNOWN

      Cold blue lights pulsed along the centreline of the hall's roof. A hall that could have been like any other inside the facility. The hexagonal cross sectioned room was again the same ubiqitous slate grey tiled affair, roughly eight metres square, with the height of the ceiling being about the same measurement as the room's width.
      The walls were decorated with the occasional incomprehensible, holographic display blinking away to itself, accompanied by a quiet crystalline tinkling sound.
      The room had two exits; the group had used one of them to enter the room from the corridor behind them, and the other being a similar hexagonal doorway that lead onwards to who-knows-what.
      The assembled group had stopped to take a rest and grab a bite to eat out of their almost spent rations.
      Corporal Stocks sat with Privates O'Shea and Garrett. Karen also sat with them. From the rounds of laughter rising from the group, and the occasional admiring glances Ryan received from the young Miss Moore, Ryan was sure that the Stocks was no doubt recounting the antics that he and Ryan got up to in their early years in the service.
      Ryan sat away from the group, alone on the cold floor with his back against the wall. His helmet, MA5B assault rifle and bottle of water lay on the floor next to him as he considered the chocolate bar in his hand. After pausing to peel away the wrapper, Ryan took a bite.
      Looking around the room, Ryan saw that Private Tom Collins was sat with Private Johnson on the opposite side of the room - both men deep in conversation. Private Johnson sat with his combat knife in hand, cleaning it in what appeared to be an absent-minded way with a rag whilst he talked to Collins.
      Another thing Ryan noticed was that Dr Muller had disappeared, together with the large aluminium case that he carried.
      Ever since both teams met up on the walkway, Ryan noticed that Dr Muller seemed to be guarding the case, not allowing it out of his sight. Perhaps he was attaching too much significance to the doctor's actions, Ryan thought. Afterall, the doctor could have simply gone for a call of nature and taken the case with him as a matter of course.
      Dr Armstrong stood near the doorway at the end of the room, apparently studying one of the holograms that were located there.
      Ryan looked away and back at the ground, his thoughts still on Dr Armstrong and the group's predicament.
      Although Dr Armstrong had assured Ryan that they were on the right way to the surface, he hadn't actually shown him any of the map data. Whether or not this was intensional on Armstrong's part Ryan didn't know - afterall, he was grateful that the soldier-come-scientist was guiding them out of what was a nightmare of a facility. It was just that Ryan liked to be aware of things - to know his options. Apart from a few revelations about the place, Armstrong had played his cards close to his chest. That concerned Ryan.
      There was also the matter of what he saw on Armstrong's uniform - something that he half recognised but couldn't put his finger on it. The hints that Armstrong dropped about working on recovered Covenant tech also rang warning bells in his mind.
      Perhaps he was over-reacting? That could be it! Afterall he was in the situation where he was answerable only to himself until the team were to get back safety onboard the Sheffield. Maybe it was due to Armstrong assuming command? Or it was just annoying him on some unconscious level because Armstrong's directions have been on the money so far.
      Ryan pushed the thoughts out of his mind. He needed to refocus. A clear, calm logical mind was required if their plan was to work.
      Ryan looked up again. He noticed that Dr Armstrong was holding his datapad against the blue-white holographic projection, whilst tapping away on his pad's screen. There appeared to be some kind of interaction occuring as the hologram began to shimmer with a bright green color. The new green glow spread outwards from that point, affecting all of the holograms in the room. The holograms pulsed briefly for a split second, and then returned to their previous blue-white hues.
      Several seconds later, all of the holograms in the room pulsed green again, and each one steadily changed back to their original blue-white colour. To Ryan this occurance looked almost as if the green pulse appeared to 'drain back' to the hologram where Dr Armstrong held his data pad.
      The Doctor stood facing the hologram for a couple of seconds before withdrawing his data pad whilst tapping a few keys on the small device. He began his walk back towards Ryan whilst smiling to himself.
      "Playing games with the hologram over there doctor?" Ryan asked as he picked up his water bottle, unscrewed the cap and took a swig.
      "Interesting stuff," replied Armstrong, "The hologram reacted to the proximity of the datapad." He studied the small device in his hand for a moment, and quickly glanced back at the holograms for a split second. "Fantastic!" He enthused, "If only we had more time to investigate this technology!"
      "How much further?" asked Ryan as he took a bite from his penultimate chocolate bar. "Rations are low and people could do with some sleep before long."
      "Relax Ryan," Armstrong said casually, as he sat down on cold floor a couple of metres away. He tapped the screen of his datapad once more, "The recon data that I have puts us close to the facility's hangar. Once you're through it, you're out on the landing platform. A couple of hours at the most - It'll be a piece of cake."
      "Really?" replied Ryan skeptically, "I would have thought that the Covies would leave someone behind to guard their ride home - I know I would if it meant being marooned otherwise."
      "Nasty business with the Albatross back there at the lakebed." Armstrong answered with an odd tone to his voice, "It just goes to show that even good plans go FUBAR sometimes."
      "Yeah," Ryan said with a forced smile, "Especially when some people screw up."
      "What exactly do you mean by that son?" Armstrong replied curiously.
      "I've been thinking... That DIR sweep you called in from the Sheffield -" Ryan answered, "I know I'm not up to date with classified technology - but a radar sweep of that magnitude might have alerted the Covies to our presence here. Did you consider tha-"
      The Doctor's jovial mood changed as abruptly as Armstrong rose to his feet "If you'll excuse me Ryan, I have important business to attend to." As he turned to leave, Armstrong added, "Don't burden yourself with any unnecessary details Sergeant. Your job is simple; to get us out of here safely. All you need to know is that the situation is under control."
      With that Dr Armstrong turned on his heels and strode off.
      Ryan screwed the plastic wrapper up from his chocolate bar and threw it on the floor beside him in anger as he watched the older man disappear back into the corridor they originally entered through.
      Corporal Stocks walked over and sat beside Ryan. "What did you say to upset him?", he grinned as he took a bite out of his own chocolate bar, "I heard you there crossing verbal swords with the Dr - What's your problem? He got us on track again."
      "I didn't realise I was doing it so badly before. Thanks for the vote of confidence, John." Ryan replied sarcastically.
      "No I didn't mean it like that!" said Stocks, giving Ryan a shove with the palm of his right hand, "I mean meeting up with the others is definately the morale booster we were looking for!" Stocks paused for a second to glance around at O'Shea, Garrett and Karen, "On the subject of the others - where is Dr Muller?" he added.
      "I was thinking that myself. He's gone and so is that case that he was carrying" Ryan replied. "Amrstrong and Muller are acting strange. I get the feeling that we don't know the full extent of what's going on here!"
      "You're over-reacting!" Stocks said as he finished the last mouthful of chocolate, "You know what stuck-up twats scientists are - look at Zoran for crying-out-loud."
      "For a scientist, even Zoran was kept out of the loop." Ryan argued, "He was sent out with us to collect samples. Armstrong and Muller were supposed to be doing the same when they found the first obelisk. Come to think of it they could have come to this place straight away instead of taking soil samples! Who would have known?"
      "Leave the paranoia to me." laughed Stocks, "Next thing you'll be saying is that Armstrong is working for ONI! No seriously, I'll have a quiet word with Garrett and O'Shea to keep their eyes open for anything."
      Stocks fell silent for a second and then continued, "One thing that did get our attention was the thing that Armstrong did with the holograms. Private Garrett has his own ideas on that one - he'll speak with you when you have a minute."
      "Ok, Thanks." Ryan replied as both he and Stocks walked across the room to join the rest of the group.

Marooned Chapter 17
Date: 10 July 2004, 3:17 PM

Apologies to those of you who have been following this series - the recent birth of my second daughter has meant that updates have been a low priority - the need for sleep coming high on that list at the moment.

I was very tired when I wrote this...

MAROONED, CHAPTER 17
--------------------

2151HRS 08-OCT-2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.
UNDERGROUND FACILITY...

"What's the hold up?" an insistent voice hissed from behind.

Ryan acknowledged Dr Armstrong's interruption with a dismissive wave of his left hand, as he remained focused on the scene that lay before him.

He gazed out upon the enormity of the room, squinting in the dim light as he took in the features carefully. Its' footprint was roughly one hundred metres square - Ryan couldn't make out the exact height of the ceiling as it was hidden in darkness. Six gigantic blue-white crystalline assemblies hung above from an unseen ceiling, describing an equally spaced circular arrangement that must have been over sixty metres in diameter. The six bizarre crystalline 'stalactites' pulsed slowly, bathing the grey-blue tiled floor at the centre of the room in an eerie cold light.

Twin walkways ran along the left and right walls of the room at approximately five metres above the intricately inscribed slate-grey tiled floor, complete with what looked like a safety handrail along the edges. Each walkway had one entrance that allowed access onto it, marked with a pale blue hologram over the door. Thankfully, the walkways weren't connected to each other.

At the end of the room a large doorway, approximately eighty metres or so in width was set into the wall, barely visible in the gloom. The large door - their only exit apart from the entrances up on the walkways - appeared to be closed.

Between them and the doorway lay a sea of crate-like objects of varying size, some of them Ryan recognised as Covenant supply cases and battlefield communication nodes, their purple coloured forms unmistakable from Ryan's previous ground engagements with Covenant. The other cases were composed of materials similar to those used in the construction of the facility.

Ryan instantly recognised the 'room' as the hangar that Dr Armstrong had mentioned earlier, as the design - the size and height, observation walkways and large aperture of the doorway meant that something big could be stored within - something a lot bigger than just supply crates.

The only thing of real value that's missing here is our ride off this miserable rock, Ryan mused.

In the gloomy shadows that ran along the perimeter of the cavernous room, Sergeant Ryan and Corporal Stocks took cover, crouching low over the cold floor behind one of the many large crates that lay in a haphazard arrangement on the floor.

"What have we got, John?" Ryan whispered to his colleague.

Stocks remained silent until he had concluded a long slow sweep of the room ahead of them. His face had a familiar pale green hue as the night vision scope's screen on his Sniper rifle dimly illuminated his features.

Ryan glanced to his right and noticed that a bead of sweat was trickling down from Stock's left temple.

"I've seen worse." Stocks finally answered whilst his gaze remained on the small screen attached to his rifle, "what we ha-"

"What's going on?" Dr Armstrong called from behind again in a low, yet annoyed tone, "We have to keep moving!"

Ryan turned back to see Dr Armstrong together with Dr Muller some six or seven metres away at the mouth of the tunnel that had led them into the gigantic room.

The older man fanatically signalled back at Ryan for him to hurry up.

Ryan responded with his right hand - making a slitting motion across his neck indicating that the doctor should remain silent - before turning back to face Stocks.

"You've really got him pissed off now!" grinned Stocks as he shot a glance back at the two 'scientists'.

Dr Armstrong was furiously tapping away on his datapad whilst Dr Muller began to nervously eye the metal case that he carried with him.

"What have you got?" Ryan asked.

"Walkways on the left and right of the room - about five metres above us - but at least they're not connected to each other." Stocks answered whilst pointing out various features, "Looks like there's at least one entrance on each walkway there so we'll have to be careful of that like before, although I don't see any Tangos' on visual or infra-red up there."

"Escape routes?"

"Apart from the tunnel we just came out of, only the hangar door that is roughly eighty or ninety metres away. The controls are..." Stocks voice trailed off as he scanned again with his rifles' scope, "...located to the left of the door."

"Covenant?"

"Two blue Elites, guarding the door controls." Stocks replied, "A piece of cake except there could more of them hidden in here!"

"Yeah," Ryan sighed, "But what I'm more bothered about is what is on the other side of the door when we finally open it! A battalion of the bastards?"

"I'm just hoping for an empty dropship, with maybe a few sleeping Grunts nearby!" laughed Stocks.

Ryan paused to scratch the stubble on his chin for a moment. "I don't like it. Something doesn't feel right..."

Ryan was about to continue his sentence when he felt a presence next to him. He turned to see Dr Armstrong stood over him.

"I can't wait here for an engraved invitation from those bastards. If you're not going to do anything then I will!" growled the soldier-come-scientist as he levelled his weapon at the distant Elites, "Just like in the old days..." he muttered to himself.

"What the hellare you doing?" hissed Ryan as he got up to make a grab for the pistol in Armstrong's hand, "We're not ready yet!"

As Ryan tried to wrestle the weapon away, Armstrong managed to discharge two shots from the pistol, which were wildly off the mark.

Alerted to their presence, one of the Elites roared a challenge before unleashing a bright blue barrage of plasma fire in Ryan's general direction.

Ryan and Stocks dove for cover, as Dr Armstrong likewise took cover, cursing under his breath.

"Way to go dumbass!" yelled Garrett as he and Private O'Shea lead Karen away from the small corridor's entry to the hangar. They took cover behind several large cases about fifteen metres into the room.

Meanwhile, Privates Collins and Johnson began their advance into the hangar.

Collins sported the MA5B Assault Rifle that Dr Armstrong had carried earlier, whilst Johnson packed the M19 SSM Rocket Launcher that had so devastatingly dealt with the two hunters back on the bridge over the chasm only a few short hours ago.

The second Elite left his companion and made a start for the door controls, some twenty metres away from it.

"Take him down!" yelled Ryan as Stocks allowed the second Elite to cross his sights.

In the dim light of the hangar, the brief muzzle flash and thunder of the S2 AM firing resulted in the sprawled form of the second Elite close to the door controls.

Had the second Elite actually made it to the door controls, the situation would have been no different now as a dull clanking sound of hidden machinery accompanied a series of pulsing green lights along the bottom edge of the hangar door.

The realisation of the situation hit Ryan like a thunderbolt as he looked backwards and forwards between the fallen Elite, the door controls, and the narrow gap growing along the bottom edge of the hangar door all in turn. "The bastards are opening it from the other side!" he shouted as he lobbed an M9 HE-DP grenade over the sea of crates towards the remaining Elite.

Marooned Chapter 18
Date: 30 January 2005, 7:46 PM

M A R O O N E D - CHAPTER 18
-----------------------------

2201HRS 08-OCT-2252 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
UNDERGROUND HANGAR, SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM

"Keep a cool head, remember your training." Ryan mumbled to himself as he aimed the barrel of the MA5B and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flashed bright orange as the rifle spewed a hail of bullets whilst kicking hard against his grip, like a wild animal trying to wrench itself loose.

Two Grunts toppled over backwards as the 7.62mm armour-piercing rounds tore through their bodies.

Ryan stepped forward over the twitching bodies, his gaze swept from side to side, looking for the next target. Presently he advanced towards the next point of cover - a large crate, pockmarked with bullet holes and plasma impacts - Ryan crouched down there and slammed another magazine into his rifle.

"Keep moving" Ryan announced through his helmet comms over the sound of duelling plasma and bullets, "We're almost there!"

"On my way," Corporal Stocks replied over the radio, as the sound of the S2 AM sniper rifle that Stocks carried rang out in the chamber. "One less Covie Bastard for us to deal with!" he added.

-----

2235HRS 08-OCT-2252 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
UNDERGROUND HANGAR, SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM

The Covenant dropship stood still - silhouetted against the night sky - The lack of illumination emanating from the dual hulls indicated that it was not in a flight-ready condition.

Bodies of fallen Covenant in various states of dismemberment littered the ground at the mouth of the hangar, and out on the landing pad.

"There's our ride home, gentlemen." Dr Armstrong said triumphantly, waving his M6D pistol in the general direction of the alien craft. "In a couple of hours' time you could be back in your bunks, laughing this off, or spending some quality time with your bed-side pinups." he smirked.

"Funny guy." Private O'Shea whispered whilst rolling his eyes.

"Let's go get her, boys!" Armstrong announced as he began to rise to his feet.

"Hang on." Ryan hissed as he grabbed the older man's arm in what seemed to him to be a moment of Deja' vu. "More haste, less speed Gramps" Ryan continued, as the rest of his team attempted to stifle their laughter, "remember what happened last time."

"Of course Sergeant," Armstrong replied, "I am forgetting the agreed chain of command that we have here... at the moment. Continue as you see fit."

"That was one hell of a fight we had back there." Stocks said as he checked the magazine of his sidearm, "I'm out of rounds for the S2 AM, and only got two magazines for the pistol. I might have to condescend and use this Covenant shit they call weapons."

"Hey they're not too bad," Private Collins piped-up, "This Needler is the dogs bollocks - we could learn from this tech."

"Yes, and we have already learned a lot from Covenant technology," Armstrong interrupted, as he and Dr Muller exchanged uneasy glances at each other, "but this will be for nothing if we hang around any longer. Sergeant Ryan, we have get off this rock!"

"Alright! Alright. We'll go." Ryan said reluctantly, "I have a bad feeling about this, It just seems to easy!"

"Too easy?" Armstrong replied incredulously, "Too easy? You haven't seen what we faced down there and what we had to get past to get up here, but believe me it wasn't easy!"

"Perhaps its' time you let us in on this big secret of yours..." Ryan replied, raising his voice, as he moved to the snatch the aluminium case from Dr Muller, "...Starting with what you are carrying in that case!"

Ryan stopped short as the barrel of Dr Armstrong's pistol was pressed hard against Ryan's left temple. "I warned you not to interfere with what doesn't concern you Ryan, and I've had enough of your curiosity!"

"Hey!" Ryan exclaimed as he lowered his hands - the sidearm still planted against the side of his skull. "I need to know what I'm dealing with here."

"You're dealing with me Sergeant!" Armstrong said coldly as the colour visibly drained from the older man's face. He leaned in closer to Ryan and continued to speak. "This goes way above any clearance you may have had on this op. Section three has given me complete autonomy as far as my mission goes. Just think yourself lucky that you are still useful, as I will not hesitate to put you down when your services are redundant."

Ryan's team stood agape, stunned at the events unravelling before them.

"Section three" Stocks whispered to himself, "He's a god-damned ONI spook. What are they doing here?"

"Ah, Corporal Stocks... John... with a service record like yours - an impressive sniper like you - it's hard to believe that you are still in your lowly rank." Armstrong said with a hint of sarcasm, whilst lowering his weapon and signalling to Private Johnson. The large man moved towards Ryan and confiscated his rifle. "Sorry man," Johnson said sheepishly, "I'm under orders."

"No problem." Ryan replied flippantly.

Dr Armstrong advanced menacingly towards Stocks, his pistol pointed at the Corporal's forehead, "Like your good friend the Sergeant here, I heard that you also have a problem with the chain of command. Are you going to cause me problems, Corporal?"

"No Sir!" Stocked shouted in reply.

"Good, I see that you are learning to keep your smart comments to yourself and your fat mouth shut, even if it is because you are staring down the barrel of a gun."

Dr Armstrong turned to face the rest of the group. "Anyone else feel the need to express themselves?"

Stunned silence followed.

"Good." Armstrong said as he beckoned the group to move off. "It's days like these that I really feel a sense of achievement!" he announced loudly.

-----

The group slowly picked their way through the Covenant carcasses towards the dropship. Sergeant Ryan led the group as Private Johnson prodded him along with the barrel of Ryan's confiscated Assault Rifle.

Just as the group was about to reach the silent craft a loud roar emanated from the left troop compartment.

Ryan instinctively dove for cover as the blur of large, almost glassy figure jumped down from the craft swinging a glowing blade, the weapon completely slicing through Private Johnson at torso level.

"Arrrgh" Ryan yelled, as the whirling energy blade followed through from Johnsons' severed form and caught him on his right shoulder. Ryan rolled away under the fuselage of the floating craft grasping his shoulder in agony.

"Where is it?" Stocks yelled, as he and the rest of the group backed off as fast as they could without falling over the dead Covenant soldiers littering the ground, "It's turned off the sword - I can't see it!"

"Go to Infra red!" yelled Private O'Shea as he whirled his weapon around nervously.

"I can't," replied Garrett "No helmet!"

"Everyone get down!" Private Collins yelled as he raised the Needler he carried and began to fire a spread of needles. The pink shards were already in flight as he heard the sound of the sword activating some metres behind him.

Pivoting on his heels, Collins continued to discharge the Needler's arsenal as the bright blue energy blade erupted into life.

The needles swerved mid-flight - their unknown targeting system had locked onto the cloaked Elite - and embedded themselves into the glassy form.

"There!" Stocks yelled as he emptied his pistols' magazine into the now visible Elite - the embedded pink needles now betraying the alien's location.

Garrett and O'Shea joined in with their assault rifles as the Elite attempted to continue its' lunge at Private Collins.

Private Collins attempted to side-step the lunge, but the blade caught his left leg as the hail of bullets finally brought down the Elite.

"Son of a bitch!" screamed Garrett as he charged over to the dead Elite and emptied the remainder of his magazine into the creature's skull. "That'll team you to mess with us; Fucker!"

"Collins? You still with us?" Stocks asked as he rushed over to the fallen soldier and quickly fished for the medi-kit.

"Yeah, and we got the bastard!" Collins replied through gritted teeth, "How bad is it mate?"

"Sliced through most of your thigh," Stocks replied as he finished putting on a pair of surgical gloves. Leaning closer to the wound, Stocks continued, "Looks like the blade cauterised the incision so you haven't lost much blood to speak of but we need to get you back to the Sheffield and into the Infirmary."

"Will he make it?" called Ryan as he slowly got up from under the dropships' left troop compartment.

"Yeah," replied Stocks as he injected Collins with the most powerful painkiller he had in the medi-kit, "But this shot will pretty much put him out action for a while, so let's not get into anymore fights. You'd better get O'Shea up here to fire the ship up before more reinforcements arrive. How's the shoulder?"

"Fucking kills." Ryan grimaced as he tried to examine the wound himself.

"Leave it." Stocks said as he finally finished dressing Collins' wound. He rose to his feet and approached Ryan with another syringe.

Stocks swiped an exposed area of Ryan's skin with a surgical wipe before sticking the syringe in his arm. "This is the same stuff that I gave to Collins" Stocks announced as he pressed the needle's plunger, "It'll kill the pain, but you'll feel like you're drunk, so don't try any balancing acts."

----

2309HRS 08-OCT-2252 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
CAPTURED COVENANT DROPSHIP IN ORIBITAL ASCENT OVER SECOND PLANET OF ACKWAZE SYSTEM.

In the dim light of the Covenant dropship, Ryan closed his eyes. The low whine emanating from the vehicle's anti-gravity propulsion system had a calming effect on him. If it weren't for the small view-ports along the side of the troop compartment Ryan wouldn't have realised that the craft was making a steep ascent into orbit.

He leaned back against the uncomfortable seating in the craft as Karen lay her head against his chest. He put his arm around her and leaned forward to kiss her on the crown of her head.

Corporal Stocks, sat with Private Collins at the other end of the compartment, both trying to get some shut-eye.

Dr Armstrong has elected himself to join Private O'Shea in the cramped cockpit of the craft to oversee the flight back to the Sheffield whilst Dr Muller and Private Garrett took the left troop compartment on the other side of the craft.

Ryan's eyes felt heavy as the full effects of the pain killers came into effect. For the first time in almost two days Ryan let himself drift off into sleep.

What ever was to await them as they approached the Sheffield, or what further altercations he might have with Dr Armstrong did not concern him at this time. He had guided them through an ordeal and for the most part, been successful.

Ryan allowed his eyes to close and he slipped into a deep dreamless sleep.



M A R O O N E D
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T H E - E N D

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